Upcoming UFC middleweight title challenger Chris Weidman is extremely confident heading into his championship bout with pound-for-pound juggernaut Anderson Silva at UFC 162. Giving his grappling credentials, “The All-American” has every reason to …
Upcoming UFC middleweight title challenger Chris Weidman is extremely confident heading into his championship bout with pound-for-pound juggernaut Anderson Silva at UFC 162.
Giving his grappling credentials, “The All-American” has every reason to believe he matches up well with his Brazilian counterpart.
Many fans and analysts believe that ChaelSonnen set the blueprint for beating “The Spider” when they fought at UFC 117, scoring with takedowns and ground-and-pound for over four rounds before the champion threw up a miracle submission in the fifth and final round.
At the UFC 162 conference call, Weidman said he thought he could beat Silva before UFC 117, but it also showed him what he will have to do to capture the middleweight strap (via MMA Junkie).
“I believed I could beat him before that fight, but (Silva) stays relaxed, and if you’re tense and he’s relaxed, eventually, he’s going to be able to get off what he wants. So, I think the main thing I learned from that is that I thought Chael was a little bit too uptight and tense when he got the takedown, and I think it paid off for Anderson to stay relaxed the entire fight because he was able to have the energy to knock that out in the fifth round. And all props to Anderson on that.”
After wins over Brian Stann and Michael Bisping, Sonnen earned a rematch with his arch nemesis at UFC 148.
While “The American Gangster” was again able to dominate Round 1 with a takedown and superior positioning on the mat, an ill-advised missed spinning back fist led to Silva finishing him via TKO in the second round.
Weidman, like Sonnen, was a two-time All-American wrestler in college, though his jiu-jitsu and striking skills are generally believed to be more dangerous than those of Sonnen.
The undefeated prospect has notched three knockouts and three submissions in nine career victories and also earned his brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu earlier this month.
Of course, Silva remains a stiff challenge for anyone, boasting a 16-0 record inside the Octagon, as well as setting the UFC middleweight record with 10 consecutive title defenses.
JohnHeinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com and contributes MMA videos to The Young Turks Sports Show.
From his time on The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes to now, show winner Norman Parke has learned a lot, especially since uprooting his life to train exclusively in the United States.Parke has now spent two full fight camps at Alliance Training Center wh…
From his time on The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes to now, show winner Norman Parke has learned a lot, especially since uprooting his life to train exclusively in the United States.
Parke has now spent two full fight camps at Alliance Training Center where he works alongside fighters like UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, Phil Davis and other top MMA competitors to better his own game.
The young Irishman has his next test in the Octagon coming up at UFC 162 against KazukiTokudome, but this is just the first step to what he hopes is a long, prosperous career.
Despite his relative novice status as a UFC fighter, Parke believes he’s going to quickly make an impact in the lightweight division, starting with his fight on July 6.
From there it’s only onwards and upwards to face the best of the best in the division. Even though he’s not ranked yet, he knows it will happen sooner or later.
“I’m not top 10 already, I’m training here with animals everyday and it’s just a matter of time,” Parke said. “I know you’ve got to work your way up the ladder and stuff like that, but I know if I was to fight anyone in the top ten straight away I would give them a run for their money no problem.”
Check out this exclusive one-on-one interview with Parke ahead of his fight at UFC 162 where he talks training in America, his fight with Tokudome and much more.
While a lot of fighters and MMA personalities are jumping on the Chris Weidman bandwagon leading up to his fight with UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva next weekend, don’t count on Demian Maia to be one of them.The Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace, who…
The Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace, who’s been lucky enough to face both men inside the Octagon and live to tell the tale, believes that “The Spider” has the edge in next weekend’s UFC 162 headlining title bout.
“He is a great fighter, he is a guy who has no big gaps in his game. But Anderson is Anderson so its tough you know? It’s a tough fight for Chris,” Maia said in a recent interview with Fighters Only magazine.
“If he can take Anderson down I would say he has a chance but still, Anderson has a good guard. So I don’t know. If I had to bet $100? I would bet it on Anderson.”
That’s a pretty bold statement by the grappling standout, considering that he was prompted to move down to the welterweight division following his unanimous decision loss to Weidman at UFC on Fox 2 last year.
But as the only person to have taken on both Silva and Weidman, Maia has a unique insight into each fighter’s style, so he should have a pretty good gauge on how they will match up.
Maia infamously fell short during his sole title challenge at UFC 112 in 2010, dropping a lopsided unanimous decision to the middleweight king. Silva drew a lot of ire from fans and UFC officials for this fight because of his constant mocking and refusal to finish Maia.
However, I doubt we’ll see this type of performance from “The Spider” next weekend.
Do you agree with Maia’s prediction? Let us know in the comments below.
Sorry fight fans, this weekend will be another weekend without any UFC action. But don’t fret, the promotion will be back in the mix on July 6 when it presents UFC 162 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. Headlining the event will b…
Sorry fight fans, this weekend will be another weekend without any UFC action. But don’t fret, the promotion will be back in the mix on July 6 when it presents UFC 162 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev.
Headlining the event will be a middleweight title fight between longtime champion Anderson Silva and the unbeaten top contender, Chris Weidman. Silva has never lost in the UFC, running up a record 16-fight unbeaten streak. Ten of those victories have been in defense of his title, another UFC record. Those facts mean little to the 9-0 Weidman, whose wrestling and jiu-jitsu background make him believe that he will be the fighter to wrest the title away from Silva.
The co-main event of the evening will see former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar looking to get back in the win column. Looking to keep Edgar’s record in the loss column will be Charles Oliveira.
What’s interesting about this fight is that it is the first time since April 2010 that Edgar will not be involved in a title fight. The last seven fights of Edgar’s UFC career have all been for UFC gold. In those fights Edgar went 3-3-1. His last three fights have been losses. Despite those defeats, Edgar remains the third-ranked fighter in the featherweight division.
Oliveira is not ranked in the top 10 and is coming off a loss to Cub Swanson heading into this contest.
In addition to the main event and co-main event, UFC 162 will feature nine additional fights:
If you’re a member of the MMA media, and you like living dangerously, why not go ahead and get your UFC 162 work out of the way right now? No reason to wait until July 6 to scramble and race the clock on deadline. The narrative practically writes…
If you’re a member of the MMA media, and you like living dangerously, why not go ahead and get your UFC 162 work out of the way right now? No reason to wait until July 6 to scramble and race the clock on deadline. The narrative practically writes itself.
Middleweight champion Anderson Silva will show up for work in Las Vegas, looking bored as only he can. He will do some distracted interviews, pretend he doesn’t speak English and hold the entire press corps in glorious disdain. No great fighter has ever done less than Silva to build his reputation in the media. The fact that he’s become a huge star anyway speaks volumes about his other-worldly talent and skill.
With his crew dressed in some kind of matching bumble bee gear, he’ll do a silly pre-fight workout. Maybe his kids will participate. Perhaps Steven Seagal will be there in a billowy Hawaiian shirt of some sort. It will be wacky.
During the course of the week, we’ll all halfheartedly try to pretend that Chris Weidman has a chance in Hades against the best fighter of all time. That he’s more than a guy who beat up an injured Mark Munoz and then disappeared from the face of the Earth. We’ll talk about his skill set, about Silva’s vulnerability to top-control wrestlers, about the fact that, in sport’s years, Silva is practically Methuselah.
But we won’t really believe it. Because Anderson Silva always wins. Always.
To be honest with you, it’s taken me a long time to come to this conclusion. From the very start, I was a skeptic. Since his UFC debut, I’ve been wrong over and over again.
If you know where to look, you can find me pontificating about how Chris Leben was going to teach Silva a lesson in his Octagon debut. What happened next was legendary, like one of those grisly nature videos where a lion separates a young gazelle from the herd.
Leben is a scrappy fighter with heart for days—but he’s just a man. Anderson Silva is barely even human. His reflexes, timing and instinct come straight out of a video game. Real people don’t move like Anderson Silva. If I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, you could conceivably trick me into believing his entire career is nothing but high-end CGI. He’s that good.
Of course, the Leben fight taught me no lessons. Next I was all aboard the Dan Henderson Express. Then Chael Sonnen. Time and again I rationalized picking against Silva. Time and again I ate my words.
Finally, I admitted defeat. But surely, even if no man could beat him, the aging process was an unconquerable and undefeated enemy. Not even Silva could outlast Father Time.
MMA fans have been spoiled by Randy Couture, a man defying the odds, somehow able to compete at a high level well into his 40’s. That’s almost unheard of in the entire history of professional athletics. For an athlete like Silva, one who relies heavily on natural gifts of speed and astounding reflexes, time is a fighter’s most fearsome foe.
…In sports, everyone gets old eventually. We’ve seen Brett Favre prone on the field gasping in pain. We’ve seen Michael Jordan, inexplicably in the blue jersey of the Washington Wizards, limping up and down the court yelling at teammates and looking like a grumpy old man. We’ve seen Muhammad Ali beaten and battered by the likes of Trevor Berbick.
With rare exceptions, all the great ones leave their sport of choice humbled and beaten. None of that diminishes what they’ve accomplished before. Anderson Silva has been a transcendent figure in mixed martial arts. When the day comes that he finally succumbs to age, injury, or even a better fighter, I hope we give him his due.
Since I foolishly decided to write his professional obituary in 2011, Silva has won four straight fights, all of them by knockout. And yet, the above rings truer now than ever before.
Silva is 38 years old. His body does carry the wear and tear of 37 professional fights. For more than a decade he has fought the best of the best in Pride and the UFC.
His days are numbered. They have to be. If Silva doesn’t start slipping, and soon, it’s time to consider subjecting him to our most brilliant evil scientists. Not as a punishment, but to bottle whatever it is that flows in his veins. For the good of all mankind.
NBA star Kobe Bryant gets treated like he’s one step from a retirement community in Florida. He’s all but yanking his pants up to his chest and talking about how it was in the old days. He can barely even dunk.
Kobe Bryant is just 34.
Intellectually, I know that a fighter at 38 is nearing the end. I know it. No matter how much we want Anderson Silva to stand in the Octagon forever, nonchalantly dodging punches and delivering humiliating justice, his time must—inevitably—come to an end.
Despite that, you won’t catch me counting him out. I won’t be picking Chris Weidman, or anybody else, to end his reign. And when that day does come, a part of me dreads what happens next. Anderson Silva has been the best fighter this sport has ever seen. I’m not ready to go on without him.
Anderson Silva is the greatest mixed martial artist we have ever seen. There is no denying that. The UFC middleweight champion holds a 33-4 record, and has won 17 consecutive bouts. Sixteen of those 17 have come in the UFC. Of all of his UFC bouts only…
Anderson Silva is the greatest mixed martial artist we have ever seen. There is no denying that.
The UFC middleweight champion holds a 33-4 record, and has won 17 consecutive bouts. Sixteen of those 17 have come in the UFC. Of all of his UFC bouts only two have gone to the judges’ scorecards. He is dominant.
His dominance inside the Octagon has cultivated an aura of invincibility around him. That is perfectly natural, but ultimately naïve. He is mortal, and eventually he will be defeated again. The question is when will his skills fade enough for that to happen?
The culprit will be age. It catches everyone. Silva is 38 years old, and while he has maintained his brutal finishing capability, it is hard to deny that he has had to change some of his tactics inside the cage.
When Muhammad Ali’s physical skills started to deteriorate he resorted to his mental advantage. His game-planning and tactics altered. The most famous development was the implementation of the “rope-a-dope” strategy. Is this something Silva has resorted to?
It is too early to tell, but in his last two bouts Silva has walked backward to the fence and stood straight up against it. He has allowed his opponents to come forward and challenged them to hit him.
One could argue that he avoided much of the damage in those cases, and that is true. However, both of his opponents were not his equal in speed. Yet he still used this strategy and took a little bit of punishment. Time will tell if this is becoming a pattern of Silva’s strategy.
At 38 years of age, it is only a matter of time until we see his speed decrease noticeably. Age will catch him.
When Silva meets Chris Weidman at UFC 162 on July 6, a lot of these questions will look to be answered. The 29-year-old has all of the physical tools to defeat Silva, and the Brazilian’s athletic abilities will be put to the test.
Weidman is an excellent athlete, and there is no getting around the fact that Silva is not the same fighter he was a decade ago, athletically speaking. If Weidman is his equal at UFC 162, we will begin to have our answer to how much is left in Silva’s tank.
As fans, we love to think of fighters of being immortal. That is why their losses come as a surprise. It is just the nature of the beast. Then the new wave of young athletes comes in to replace the old regime to give us another decade of fun. We get lulled back in to believing in their invincibility.
Silva’s amazing career does not look to be complete, but the new wave of talented fighters are here. Athletes like 25-year-old Jon Jones now own the sport. Silva is on his way out.
One can only hope that Silva retires before his skills diminish too much. We never like to see our heroes fade in to obscurity. UFC 162 will gives us a peak into just how much Silva has left in his gas tank. It will give us an idea of just how much more he can give us.
It is time to stop believing he will be giving us stellar performances forever. Those times are coming to an end. They may not end at UFC 162, but they are rapidly approaching and everyone should start preparing for the day he exits the sport.
If you’re a member of the