Around a year ago, former UFC middleweight champion Chris ‘The All-American’ Weidman ended his three-fight losing streak against dangerous Kelvin Gastelum.
Sidelined by a hand injury, the former champ is ready to return and is campaigning for a title shot against current champion Robert ‘The Reaper’ Whittaker against whom he believes he matches up well.
“Obviously for me, that would be best-case scenario is to fight for the title, to fight Whittaker,” Weidman said on a recent episode of The MMA Hour. “I feel like that’s a guy I match up really well against. It’s a guy, I’d go out there and I believe I could finish.”
With Whittaker having a karate background on his resume, Weidman feels it would be perfect having two-time welterweight title challenger Stephen Thompson on his side.
“(Whittaker’s) very tough, he’s elusive, got kind of like a karate-style background. But I have great training partners,” Weidman said. “I have ‘Wonderboy,’ who actually knocked him out. He’s a family member of mine and just based on that it gives me extra motivation not to lose to him when I’ve got my brother-in-law who knocked him out.”
“How am I going to go to family functions if I go out there and lose to him? It’s definitely something that would play as motivation and give me confidence going into the fight.”
“But he’s a tough guy, he’s hard to hold down. I just feel like between my striking and the way I transition into wrestling and my grappling and my jiu-jitsu, I just feel like I’m too well-rounded for him. It doesn’t matter how tough the guy is.”
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