It may have taken far too long, but the Ultimate Fighting Championship has finally given Canadian UFC welterweight Rory MacDonald the title shot he was promised last year. MacDonald will face off against current champion Robbie Lawler at UFC 189 on July 11 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

After MacDonald put Tarec Saffedine away in his last fight, the No. 2 contender’s path to a title fight looked to be straight ahead. UFC president Dana White even admitted as much.

“It’s pretty impossible to deny Rory that, whoever comes out of that Hendricks-Lawler fight, he’s the next guy in line,” White told the Canadian Press. “He’s next in line and that fight will be in Canada.”

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However, that was before Robbie Lawler took the belt from Johny Hendricks. After that, the UFC planned to do Lawler vs. Hendricks III and put MacDonald against Hector Lombard at UFC 186 in his adopted hometown of Montreal. Then, Lombard tested positive for a designer steroid, which threw the whole division landscape into flux.

“I was a little bit heartbroken,” MacDonald told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour back in January. “But it’s okay. Even when I first heard the news that I was promised I was going to get the next title shot, I was skeptical. You can’t always believe what you hear. Things change so often in this sport, you’d be a fool if you believed everything that came out. So I’m not surprised that it happened. But I was pretty sad about it.”

Now, it’s official. This will be a rematch between Lawler and MacDonald after the current champ won a split decision in their first fight back at UFC 167. MacDonald, now 25 years old, is 18-2 in the UFC while the 32-year-old Lawler is 25-10-0 with one no-contest.

MacDonald vs. Lawler II will serve as UFC 189’s co-main event with Conor MacGregor vs. Jose Aldo in the main event.