UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva will make his next middleweight title defense at UFC 162 in Las Vegas on July 6th and he will be challenged by Chris Weidman.
UFC officials announced the fight on Wednesday along with three other fights that will take place on the card coming from the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Along with the title fight, the card will also see Roger Gracie (6-1) vs. Tim Kennedy (15-4), Tim Boetsch (15-6) vs. Mark Munoz (12-3) and Thiago Silva (14-3, 2NC) vs. Rafael Cavalcante (11-3, 1NC).
Silva (33-4) will be making his 11th middleweight title defense and has been the champion since 2006. During his title reign, he has only done the distance twice and seven of those wins have come by knockout.
This will be his first title defense since successfully defending the title against Chael Sonnen at UFC 148. He defeated Sonnen by TKO in the second round and it was his 20th career victory by knockout.
Weidman (9-0) entered the UFC in early 2011 and has gone 5-0 in the organization. Three of his last four victories have come by stoppage, with two of those victories coming by submission. This will be his first fight since UFC on FUEL TV 4 last July, which he dominated Mark Munoz and won the fight in the second round by knockout.
UFC 162 will take place on July 6th from the MGM Grand Garden Arena and ticket information for the event will be released by the UFC in the coming weeks.