The UFC’s middleweight division has some very interesting match-ups that could happen in the next few years. One of them being a meeting between former 185-pound champ Chris Weidman and current interim division champ Israel Adesanya.
Weidman has been slightly critical of “Stylebender” in the past, and elaborated on his past comments when speaking on “The Ariel Helwani MMA Show” yesterday (Mon. April 22, 2019). “The All American” called himself a “nightmare” match-up for the Nigerian champ should they ever share the Octagon. He also doesn’t believe he has ever truly been tested against a top wrestler (via MMA Mania):
“Look, people were going nuts on Israel. He’s a very talented guy, he’s got great standup and now I know that he is super tough after that last fight. Before he fought Anderson Silva, he fought Derek Brunson, he fought Silva who is 44 and is known as a standup guy, which is a perfect matchup for him.
“It was a very close fight,” said Weidman. “At that point people were talking about him like he’s the next best thing, and at that point I just thought he was overrated and he hadn’t been able to prove himself yet. He hasn’t gone against a top wrestler, hadn’t fought guys in the top five.
“I just felt people were getting ahead of themselves. But that was it. I’m a fan of the guy, I like watching him fight and I would love to fight him. I think I’m a nightmare matchup for him if you look on paper, just based on the paper with my wrestling and my jiu-jitsu. With my size, I think I will be a real problem for him.”
Chris Weidman’s Stumbles
Weidman was undefeated at one point of his mixed martial arts (MMA) career. That ended against Luke Rockhold back in 2015. The defeat marked the beginning of a three-fight losing skid. Weidman returned to the win column, picking up his first win in two years against Kelvin Gastelum in July of 2017.
In his most recent outing against Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza in November, Weidman was knocked out in the third round after a brutal war. He’ll have to do a lot of work before getting back into the title conversation at 185 pounds.
Adesanya very well could be on his way to becoming undisputed champion of the division.
Who do you think takes a potential match-up between Weidman and Adesanya?
