Chris Weidman is an undefeated middleweight currently sporting a 9-0 record. As the current #1 contender, Weidman will face Anderson Silva at UFC 162 in Las Vegas on July 6, 2013. Weidman has only been competing in mixed martial arts for four and a half years. He grew up a wrestling stand out in Long Island, NY. While attending Hofstra University, Weidman was named to the NCAA All-American team in 2006 & 2007, where he placed 6th and 3rd in the 197lb division, respectively. Prior to transferring to Hofstra he was also a two time National Junior College All American Team member. When he did not win a spot on the 2008 Olympic team roster, Weidman began training in MMA.
He took his first fight in February of 2009 in Lou Neglia’s Ring of Combat promotion. He went undefeated during his time in Ring of Combat; winning the promotion’s Middleweight championship and defending it once before going up to the UFC to face Alessio Sakara in March of 2011. After a hard-fought unanimous decision win, Weidman finished his next two opponents in the first round: Jesse Bongfeldt with a Submission of the Night Standing Guillotine and Tom Lawlor with a D’arce Choke. Lawler refused to tap to the D’arce choke and went unconscious in the ring.
Weidman then faced Demian Maia at UFC on Fox 2. Weidman took the fight on 11 days notice after Maia’s original opponent, Michael Bisping, stepped up to take the place of Chael Sonnen’s injured opponent Mark Munoz. Weidman cut over 32 lbs in those 10 days. He then defeated Maia by a unanimous decision that was erroneously read as a split decision to the crowd. Dana White later cleared up the correct scoring of the fight on Twitter. 6 months later, Weidman faced the healed Mark Munoz in his first Main Event spot at UFC on Fuel TV: Munoz vs. Weidman.
Weidman defeated Munoz in the second round with a vicious elbow followed by a series of unanswered strikes. Weidman was expected to meet Tim Boetsch on Dec. 29th 2012, however he had to pull out due to a training injury and by the time he was healthy enough to fight the contender picture had cleared up quite a bit thanks to Bisping’s loss to Vitor Belfort and Boetsch’s loss to Weidman’s training partner Constantinos Philippou. It will be just days shy of a full year off from fighting when Weidman enters the cage against Anderson Silva. There’s no telling if Weidman’s training has been affected by the damage his home suffered during Super Storm Sandy, or if ring rust will play a factor in the upcoming bout.
Photo credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea – USA Today Sports
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