Sherdog’s Top 10: UFC Middleweight Title Fights

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2. Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman
UFC 162
July 6, 2013 | Las Vegas
After six years, eight months and 22 days, Silva finally relinquished his hold on the Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight throne. Weidman knocked out a clowning Silva with a left hook and follow-up ground strikes in the UFC 162 headliner at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, becoming the sixth middleweight champion in the promotion’s 20-plus-year history. The unbeaten Weidman brought the match to a shocking and decisive close 78 seconds into Round 2. The loss was Silva’s first legitimate defeat since December 2004 and snapped a string of 17 consecutive victories. The Brazilian had never before been stopped by strikes. Weidman took down Silva in the first round, softened him with ground-and-pound and aggressively fished for two leg locks, first a kneebar and then a heel hook. Once “The Spider” returned to his feet, he started the uncomfortable process of toying with his challenger in a scene that had grown familiar to mixed martial arts followers. However, his taunting caught up to him early in the second round, as Weidman floored and finished him at the feet of referee Herb Dean.

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