By Chris Howie
MMANEWS.COM Staff Writer
UFC Middleweight Chris Weidman was a guest on this week's episode of UFC Tonight and revealed to Ariel Helwani that he ignored challenges from other fighters such as Vitor Belfort so that he could wait out a possible title fight with Anderson Silva:
“From what I am being told, it is a fight that the UFC would want to make happen. Now, it is just confusing. I don't know what is going on. I am waiting to find out from Dana White. I didn't take a couple of fights from people challenging me, like (Vitor) Belfort, so I could take the Silva fight. But, now it is all up in the air. I don't know what is going on.”
“I don't have any deadlines, but I am young and I want to make the most of my career. I have a lot of respect for the guy, I think he is the greatest of all time and I look up to him. I think I am the biggest challenge to him and I think his camp knows that and I think he should challenge me.”
“Hey man, just give me a chance. Obviously I think I am going to beat you and it is a tough one for me to tell you to do. You had one fight when you got the chance, so just give me my opportunity, just give me the fight.”
Weidman then took to The Underground forum to clarify his statements:
Whatsup guys! Appreciate all the support. Just wanted to make it clear what happened here. The week after my last fight Belfort and a bunch of guys called me out. No fight was offered to me from the UFC. So no fight was turned down. From my understanding the UFC told Belfort the fight wasn't gonna happen with me and him so he took the fight with Belcher. At the same time my management and I were waiting for the UFC to find out when Anderson wanted to fight next. If it was in a couple of months then I was a possible opponent. A couple of weeks after Belfort already accepted the fight with Belcher, the UFC announced that Anderson wasn't fighting until 2013. Had I known that from the beginning I would've jumped on the fight against Belfort. I think he's a great fighter and it would've been great for my career.
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