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A few short days after Christmas, current UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman will defend the gold against former middleweight champion Anderson Silva. The duo first met many months back at UFC 162, when Weidman stunned the MMA universe by knocking out Silva in the second round to take home the coveted championship. The victory proved to be on the same level or even a bigger upset than the time Matt Serra defeated Georges St. Pierre for the welterweight strap at UFC 69.
The win over Silva will always be one of the high points, if not the highest, of the stellar MMA career of champion Chris Weidman. However, depending on how the rematch turns out, winning the championship could lead to all of Weidman’s dreams coming true or his worst nightmare turn to life. Let’s briefly examine the situation between the aforementioned Georges St. Pierre and Matt Serra to get insight into my point. At UFC 69, Serra knocked out GSP in the opening round of their title bout to pull what many consider to be the biggest upset in UFC history.
Serra was never able to find much success in the UFC after that, he dropped the belt to GSP in brutal fashion at UFC 83. Serra was never even able to come close to his past success or even come close to another opportunity at the gold in any weight class. Oddly enough, middleweight champion Chris Weidman currently trains with Serra at his New York gym. Anyway, Weidman now finds himself in a similar situation that his current mentor found himself in a few years back.
Weidman, as many have predicted heading into the rematch, could fall short and find himself never getting close to another title shot again. The fight could also go the same as the first one, result-wise anyway, which would erase any fluke talk that started building after Weidman’s initial victory. The problem with the Serra victory over GSP was that Serra was unable to build anything for his career after he pulled the huge upset. Weidman is now in a similar spot and could find himself slowly fading to obscurity after his greatest achievement in his MMA career.
Now do not get me wrong, no matter what happens to Weidman in the rematch, he and Serra will always go down in the annals of MMA history for their accomplishments in their respective championship victories. Weidman though has an opportunity to correct the mistake that Serra made after his title victory and defeat the former champion in their rematch to build an even bigger legacy than his mentor before him.
Upsets happen all the time in the sports world and outside of the UFC, just think about all the upsets that have occurred over the years in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, Boxing and other such areas of sport. The thing is, and something Weidman may soon come to know, is that upsets are always remembered, but who walks way champion in the long run is remembered even more. In the end of the day, Chris Weidman did defeat Anderson Silva in a shocking upset at UFC 162 to become the UFC Middleweight Champion…but will MMA fans remember just the upset victory or how much better Weidman did as champion after that shocking win?
A win in the rematch for Weidman will not only solidify his position as a top tier middleweight champion and competitor in the UFC, but a loss can spin his world upside down and put him in a shadow in which he can never come out of.
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Contact me at bigteesps3@yahoo.com
