UFC 162, set for July 6, will be headlined by a middleweight title fight between Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva.
While Silva will enter the match as the decided favorite, there is a sense that Weidman poses a realistic threat to “The Spider’s” reign and that the challenger may just give the champion the stiffest test he has faced in quite some time.
Weidman himself believes so, asserting that his own set of skills will prove problematic for Silva.
“He’s a great champion for a reason,” Weidman explained during a pre-fight interview. “But he knows that I’m a really bad matchup, and I’m a tougher opponent than some people might understand.”
With NCAA Division All-American honors, experience competing in an ADCC grappling tournament and a striking arsenal that has visibly grown each time he’s fought, Weidman keys on something important in his assessment.
Silva has fought good grapplers before and beat them. He’s fought good wrestlers and beat them. And he’s fought good strikers and beat them.
But with capable stand-up, power wrestling that is difficult to stop and the submission skills to make his opponent pay for every takedown, Weidman may just prove to be the foil no other fighter has been.
Then again, how many competitors have claimed to be Silva’s kryptonite, only to be quickly dispatched inside the Octagon?
Weidman is confident that won’t happen to him, though, and he plans to prove himself on July 6.
“He’d be a fool not to respect me as a fighter,” Weidman warned. “On July 6, when we step in that cage, he’s going to respect me.”
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