Chris Weidman retained his middleweight championship at UFC 168, where he dominated Anderson Silva on the ground prior to the Brazilian suffering a gruesome leg injury.
In the first round, Weidman took Silva down quickly, but it was a knockdown that ke…
Chris Weidman retained his middleweight championship at UFC 168, where he dominated Anderson Silva on the ground prior to the Brazilian suffering a gruesome leg injury.
In the first round, Weidman took Silva down quickly, but it was a knockdown that kept the former champion on the canvas for the rest of the stanza. From the top, Weidman went to work with ground-and-pound and earned a clear edge on the scorecards.
Then, the second frame came to an abrupt halt when a Silva leg kick was checked perfectly by Weidman. Silva’s leg snapped at the shin on impact, resulting in an immediate stoppage and unfortunately the likely end of the Brazilian’s storied MMA career.
Now that Weidman has beaten Silva in back-to-back outings, he can begin looking forward to defending his belt against new foes. Here are the fights that should be next for the 185-pound titleholder and the rest of the UFC 168 competitors.
Chris Weidman retained his middleweight title at UFC 168—albeit not in a way he would’ve wanted.
Anderson Silva looked to be taking the fight seriously, as he didn’t engage in his usual taunting. It came to an end as Silva threw a leg kick that w…
Chris Weidman retained his middleweight title at UFC 168—albeit not in a way he would’ve wanted.
Anderson Silva looked to be taking the fight seriously, as he didn’t engage in his usual taunting. It came to an end as Silva threw a leg kick that was checked by Weidman. Silva’s leg snapped and the former champ collapsed to the ground in a heap of pain.
The win for Weidman pushed his record to 11-0 and set up a title fight with VitorBelfort in the process. We know Belfort is next for the champ, but how does the rest of the division stack up?
By now it’s the Break Heard ‘Round the World.
Anderson Silva, in his quest to regain the middleweight title from Chris Weidman, bent his leg around the knee of the champion at mid-shin, ending his bid for gold and quite possibly his career.
It’s a disa…
Anderson Silva, in his quest to regain the middleweight title from Chris Weidman, bent his leg around the knee of the champion at mid-shin, ending his bid for gold and quite possibly his career.
It’s a disastrous way for the greatest mixed martial artist in history to go out, one that robs both he and Weidman of a concrete resolution to a fistic feud that spread across most of 2013.
But what if it didn’t end that way? What if that kick landed or Silva’s shin held up, and we got the remaining 19 minutes of billed main event action?
Sadly for Silva, the result would have been somewhere between ‘similar’ and ‘exactly the same’ on the scale of such things. He probably wouldn’t have left on a stretcher and if his career was over at the end of the bout it would have been entirely on his own terms, but there was a very strong chance that the ledger would have seen a ‘W’ next to Weidman‘s name anyway.
From the outset it was clear that Silva was overmatched. His early attempts to bully Weidman in the clinch – his bread and butter for much of his UFC reign – were met with almost no success, a concern punctuated by the champion’s ability to drop him with a right hand there with relative ease.
On his back, Silva, owner of a masterful defensive guard and an utterly underrated ability to open cuts from the position, looked completely overmatched. Shrimping and scrambling to make space, attempting a body triangle, and throwing up his legs when possible were essentially diversions from what appeared to be academic. UFC 168 would belong to Weidman unless something drastic happened.
Something drastic did happen, but not in the expected way. The Silva leg break ended things at nearly the exact second a knockout blow did in their first meeting, and the MMA community was awash with horror and bewilderment at the way things came to a close.
Make no mistake, however, things would not have looked much different if the fight had gone on. While Silva is a notorious slow starter, it was clear that he was struggling with Weidman from the outset. Not only was the predictable advantage in takedowns exposed by the champion, but he was outdoing Silva in areas where Silva excels.
He beat him up in the clinch. He beat him up in guard. He beat him up on the feet.
It’s not impossible that the tide may have turned had his body held up, but Silva gave the world little indication that he was going to regain his title. You have to go on evidence, and the evidence in the cage showed a man whose time at the top was over. Anything else is simply counterfactual speculation.
The worst part of all of this is that two elite athletes had the chance to settle a score taken from them as a result of an injury.
But based on what we saw in the main event while it lasted, it may be no matter. Chris Weidman is the undisputed UFC middleweight champion and, injury be damned, it seems like it was only a matter of time before he proved it without question.
Ronda Rousey is one of the most outspoken competitors in mixed martial arts today.
She fuses superior grappling skills with an ironclad bravado to dominate every woman who was brave enough to step inside the cage with her.
But when she refused to shake…
Ronda Rousey is one of the most outspoken competitors in mixed martial arts today.
She fuses superior grappling skills with an ironclad bravado to dominate every woman who was brave enough to step inside the cage with her.
But when she refused to shake Miesha Tate’s hand after a brutal three-round war at UFC 168 this Saturday, fans took notice.
Here’s the champ’s explanation as to why she displayed such a lack of sportsmanship under the brightest of spotlights.
Rarely do we see fighters break onto the scene to defeat a mixed martial arts icon in succession.
Rarely are we witness to the impossible, whether it be an illustrious knockout or unbearably painful leg break.
Rarely can we point our finger at a young …
Rarely do we see fighters break onto the scene to defeat a mixed martial arts icon in succession.
Rarely are we witness to the impossible, whether it be an illustrious knockout or unbearably painful leg break.
Rarely can we point our finger at a young champion with only 11 professional fights under his belt and say, “That guy is the real deal.”
Well, on the heels of beating the GOAT for the second time this year, it’s officially time to consider Chris Weidman the real deal.
Saturday night’s unfathomable destruction of Anderson Silva was not only an exclamation mark to the champ’s unheralded upset at UFC 162, but it represented Weidman‘s gleaming potential moving forward.
As a wrestler with the discipline to check kicks like he was brushing his teeth, along with powerful hands that can drop any unsuspecting middleweight, “The All-American” has a future that any true fan would be proud of.
But what makes Weidman even more distinguished among his peers is his ability to understand the moment. He knows what to throw, when to throw it, when not to throw it and how to look unflappable while doing so.
Not to mention he continuously displays the incumbent class and respect that other professional fighters only dream of.
What Weidman has become is, for the lack of a better title, the perfect champion. He’s humble and hard working; he understands his role in the sport and keeps his mind on greater things.
At no point has he ever seem overwhelmed by any of this. Even as a young kid trying to shed the doom of Hurricane Sandy and unwanted shoulder issues prior to UFC 162, Weidman remained resilient. Even as a champion with little public support trying to end a legend of combat, Weidman remained resilient.
It is that resiliency and determination that has led him to his new role as middleweight king. Because in a time when long-tenured gods like Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva have either stepped down or lost their footing, the UFC needs new faces.
Weidman seems to be that new poster boy as he aims to defend his hard-earned championship opposite VitorBelfort sometime next year.
Anderson Silva suffered a gruesome injury at UFC 168, and Jayne Kamin-Oncea snapped her camera’s shutter at precisely the instant it happened (h/t MMAjunkie.com).
The former champion lined up a series of leg kicks against Weidman in Round 2 of t…
The former champion lined up a series of leg kicks against Weidman in Round 2 of their main-event tangle, a game plan that backfired in dramatic, disgusting fashion.
In addition to the picture above, former The Ultimate Fighter contestant Jimmy Quinlan posted the following to his Instagram account:
GIF wizard Zombie Prophet (@ZProphet_MMA) also posted this heartbreaking image as “The Spider” left the Octagon on a stretcher. Moments before, Mr. Prophet also published this sequence which puts motion to Kamin-Oncea’s polarizing frame.
This unfortunate conclusion came after a first round that saw Weidman dominate on the feet and on the ground.
After an early takedown, Silva popped back up to his feet, only to get clipped by a stiff right hand from Weidman that sent him back to the canvas.
From there, Weidman unleashed some furious ground-and-pound and controlled the remainder of the round.
Silva, perhaps sensing the urgency of the situation, began to open up in the second round, only to have the bout halted by the injury.
Check out the full video highlights from the anticipated rematch here:
No true fight fan—even fans of Weidman—wanted to see a legend go down like this, and now Silva’s future in the sport is uncertain.
Will he return? Should he?
After this injury, the future is bleak. Thankfully, the past will shine bright for Silva, lighting the way to retirement and proudly displaying his unparalleled legacy.
By now it’s the 
