UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has heard UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva’s camp call him out for a superfight, but “Rush” believes there is one man who may ensure that bout never happens: Chris Weidman. “You never know what’s…
UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has heard UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva‘s camp call him out for a superfight, but “Rush” believes there is one man who may ensure that bout never happens: Chris Weidman.
“You never know what’s going to happen in the future,” St-Pierre told MMA Fighting. “A lot of things can change. There are a lot of big fights coming up. Chris Weidman, I’ve seen him in training. He’s at a different level. He can be world champion if he fights Anderson first. So, this fight is not written in blood. If all goes well and all the stars are aligned, yeah, maybe one day it will happen. But right now, I just came back and I need to fight Carlos Condit. We’ll see what’s going to happen next.”
At no point did St-Pierre indicate that didn’t have interest in eventually meeting “The Spider” inside the Octagon, but instead said that now wasn’t the time to focus on such a fight.
“I’m interested to fight whoever they (the UFC) put in front of me,” he said. “I’m not afraid of nobody. I want to make the biggest fight. Right now, I just came back from a long time off, and I think the first guy in line is Carlos Condit. So I’m going to get who they give me.”
GSP is scheduled to make his return in to a home crowd in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for UFC 154 when he takes on UFC interim welterweight champion Carlos Condit to unify the belts. The bout is scheduled for Nov. 17.
The Canadian champion’s endorsement of Weidman is intriguing since “The All-American” trains at the Serra-Longo Fight Team in Long Island, New York.
Therefore, one of Weidman’s head coaches is former UFC welterweight title holder Matt Serra. “The Terror” is the last man to defeat St-Pierre all the way back at UFC 69 in April 2007.
Serra’s victory was unanimously considered the upset of the year, though GSP had his revenge when the two rematched at UFC 83 almost exactly one year later.
“Anderson said he wants to take some time off until after the end of this year, [then] we’ll start talking to him. [Chris Weidman] is in a great spot. The kid looked fantastic, demolished the number three guy. Demolished in spectacular fashion. He’s got the right to call out whoever he wants [but] he’s gonna have to wait, or fight [somebody else first], because Anderson’s gonna fight after the end of the year.”
Look Andy, you don’t want to fight Weidman, we get it. In the grand scheme of life, love, and pay-per-view buys, he’s small potatoes. And you think that if you take half a year off, maybe Weidman will have to fight again (and maybe lose), or perhaps he’ll die of natural causes. This is your plan, basically.
“Anderson said he wants to take some time off until after the end of this year, [then] we’ll start talking to him. [Chris Weidman] is in a great spot. The kid looked fantastic, demolished the number three guy. Demolished in spectacular fashion. He’s got the right to call out whoever he wants [but] he’s gonna have to wait, or fight [somebody else first], because Anderson’s gonna fight after the end of the year.”
Look Andy, you don’t want to fight Weidman, we get it. In the grand scheme of life, love, and pay-per-view buys, he’s small potatoes. And you think that if you take half a year off, maybe Weidman will have to fight again (and maybe lose), or perhaps he’ll die of natural causes. This is your plan, basically.
The problem is, taking an extended hiatus at the age of 37 is never a wise move for a professional athlete. Eventually, you’ll have to come back, and there’s a good chance that Chris Weidman will still be waiting there, still improving at an alarming rate. Trust me, you want to fight this kid now, not next Spring.
The bottom line is, Silva doesn’t think it’s in his best interest to fight the guy who happens to be next in line right now, and nobody can force him to sign a contract, so he’s waiting until the situation changes. Perhaps he’s biding his time for a superfight against Georges St. Pierre — which keeps popping up as a rumor — but that would assume that GSP doesn’t suffer another injury during his fight against Carlos Condit in November.
So what do you think about Silva’s long vacation? Will it be a bad move for his career? And should UFC champions even be allowed to say “screw it, I’m not fighting”?
Following the UFC 150 post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White acknowledged that middleweight Chris Weidman is who he feels is the No. 1 contender. However, White did not say that the New York native will be the next fight for Brazilian ch…
Following the UFC 150 post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White acknowledged that middleweight Chris Weidman is who he feels is the No. 1 contender.
However, White did not say that the New York native will be the next fight for Brazilian champion Anderson Silva.
“I haven’t talked to Silva,” White told the MMA media. “He won’t fight again this year.”
When asked if he felt Weidman is the No. 1 guy, White emphatically said, “Yes. He just took out the No. 3 guy in the division in Mark Munoz. And he completely destroyed him.”
White did reveal that if Weidman is not next the next matchup for Silva, the long-rumored superfight between Silva and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre may finally come to fruition, yet he remained noncommittal.
“We’ll see what happens with GSP in November,” White said. “Then we’ll see what is next for Silva.”
The question was posed if the fight could take place in Dallas’ Cowboys Stadium next year. White simply smiled and continued with his “we’ll see” approach.
This is not the first time that a fight between Silva and St-Pierre has been rumored, but St-Pierre faces a welterweight title unification bout against interim champion Carlos Condit on Nov. 17 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Should the Canadian get past Condit, the planets may align for the dream fight to take place.
Stay tuned to Bleacher Report for updates on potential bouts for Weidman and Silva, and the potential superfight between the two long-reigning champions.
After 10 successful title defenses, Anderson Silva is probably letting his mind wander a bit, contemplating a life after a career that has seen him become the greatest fighter in the history of MMA. He’s earned every accolade that’s come hi…
After 10 successful title defenses, Anderson Silva is probably letting his mind wander a bit, contemplating a life after a career that has seen him become the greatest fighter in the history of MMA.
He’s earned every accolade that’s come his way, not to mention some of the criticism, and no one can honestly deny the fact that he’s put in his time and given a great deal of to the sport. You don’t accomplish what Silva has on sheer talent alone; it takes considerable dedication and desire to just get into the UFC, but to become the best of the best?
It takes more than we will probably ever know.
So, while he sits back and enjoys some of the more benign comforts of home and family, the rest of us wait and wonder, pondering but a single question: Who’s next?
When considering this question honestly, we must first decide who is being served: Silva as champion, we as fans or the sport as a whole.
And as always, if we want to be fair, the answer is clear: The sport (in this case the middleweight division) must be served, and that means deciding who is the top contender for a title shot.
There are a lot of names floating around, and an argument could be made for any one of them, but out of that fog, only Chris Weidman stands out as a fighter who is not only available but seemingly injury free.
Weidman’s on a hot streak, sitting in the top five after his brutal finish of Mark Munoz, and he is honestly a more dangerous version of Chael Sonnen in the fact that both men have a very similar style, but Weidman is a much harder puncher.
Chris Weidman is one of those fighters who do their best and rise to the moment instead of being dwarfed by it. He’s fought on short notice, and his battering of Mark Munoz (who was honestly the clear choice for a title shot before running into Weidman) was very impressive.
In Silva vs. Weidman we have experience vs. youth, speed vs. strength and stylistically we have a great striker and submission artist vs. a great wrestler with powerful ground-and-pound and underrated submission skills.
But is Weidman hungry enough to do what is necessary?
Granted, Chael Sonnen gave many fighters what they see as the ultimate blueprint on how to defeat Silva: Take him down, keep him down and let the punches fly. However, Sonnen had something that most don’t—the courage of his convictions and smack talk—and that saw him dare to be great.
But during the second round of their rematch, even the self-acclaimed great Chael Sonnen broke under the pressure—deciding to sit against the cage with hardly any defense in mind after trying a risky spinning back fist that saw him fall flat on his backside.
Sonnen could have gotten up, but for some reason he didn’t, and he paid the price.
Now, should Weidman remain healthy and get the call, can he use the same game plan with greater success?
And that’s what makes Weidman the clear choice, at least for this writer: Weidman poses questions that Silva will have to contend with, where it is normally the other way around. Could Silva deal with Weidman’s takedowns and once again find a way to defeat a superior wrestler who punches much harder than most?
Silva fans (of which I am one) will declare that there is no question because Silva defeated Sonnen twice, Henderson once, etc. It’s understandable to think that way, but it’s also not in keeping with realism.
There are only so many kinds of fighters out there, stylistically speaking, and to think that Silva hasn’t seen his toughest moments when facing strong wrestlers is contrary to our experience.
Weidman would rightly be a big underdog in a fight with Silva, because Silva is the best in the sport right now. His detractors can take to the rooftops and shout all they want about how Sonnen was robbed or that Silva is a cheater or coward—whatever they are screaming this week—but the simple fact is that Silva has beaten everyone the UFC has put in front of him since 2006, and there is no one in the organization who can say the same.
And while it’s true that Silva has more than a few advantages over almost anyone he faces, Weidman has advantages over Silva that Sonnen didn’t: Weidman’s good enough to take Silva down as Sonnen did, but Weidman has the power to not only bruise and bloody Silva, but potentially knock him out on the ground, whereas Sonnen could not.
Weidman is also much better at submissions than Sonnen is, and he’s a very confident young man right now, as he should be. It’s doubtful that would change if he were to fight Silva, because all the pressure would be on the champion, not Weidman.
Yes, Weidman would be an underdog, but as Randy Couture has proven on more than one occasion, sometimes being the underdog is a great place to be.
UFC on FOX 4 is monumental for the UFC’s light heavyweight division, as all four men at the top of the card are all fighting for a title shot. All they have to do is go out and win impressively—no small task.All four are also former Jon Jones vic…
UFC on FOX 4 is monumental for the UFC’s light heavyweight division, as all four men at the top of the card are all fighting for a title shot. All they have to do is go out and win impressively—no small task.
All four are also former Jon Jones victims, and this adds a whole different level of intrigue. However, one name that hasn’t been mentioned at all is Rashad Evans. Evans is coming off a decision loss that saw him become the first man to take Jon Jones the distance during his championship run.
With four fighters all vying for a shot at the belt, it seems like there just may not be any room for Evans at the top of the light heavyweight division anymore.
UFC President Dana White spoke with Bleacher Report and attending MMA media following the UFC on FOX 4 pre-fight press conference, and the topic of Evans’ future came up. White seemed as baffled as fans were, regarding Evans before going into promoter mode and creating a hypothetical fight on the spot.
“Rashad? I dunno. Personally I haven’t talked to Rashad. I’ve heard the talks of him wanting to go to 185 or possibly going to 185. I dunno. If he did, he’d have to fight somebody,” White told Bleacher Report. “Maybe you do Rashad vs. Weidman and the winner of that gets a shot. You know what I mean? That just came off the top of my head.”
As a fan of both Evans and Chris Weidman, I absolutely LOVE this idea. I think that both present interesting stylistic problems for the other and believe that both have the best shot at defeating Anderson Silva. Both have fantastic wrestling and the ability to take the fight wherever they want.
After 10 successful title defenses,