Chris Weidman will return to middleweight to fight Jack Hermansson in the main event of UFC Fight Night 174 in Oklahoma City on May 2nd.
The former middleweight champion made an ill-fated move up to light-heavyweight last year, but suffered a first round KO loss against Dominick Reyes that soon had him rethinking his plans.
However, it’s worth stressing that this was just the continuation of a bad run of form that had also been haunting him at 185lbs, where he had lost four of his past five fights before stepping up a division.
The standard of opposition has consistently been at the highest level for Weidman, losing to the likes of Luck Rockhold, Yoel Romero and Gegard Mousasi, but the biggest concern for the 35-year-old is that all five of his losses have come by way of strikes, incuding three clean knockouts.
Now he’ll face Hermansson, who is coming off a TKO loss against Jared Cannonier back in September of last year.
That was a disappointing defeat for Hermansson given that he had been on a four-fight winning streak at the time, defeating the likes of Thales Leites, Gerald Meerschart, Dave Branch and Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, which had put him close to title contention.
Weidman vs. Hermansson fronts a UFC Fight Night 174 card that will also feature Claudia Gadelha vs. Marina Rodriguez.
