Mark Munoz–Chris Weidman Booked for July UFC on Fuel TV Event

Middleweight contenders meet July 11 at location TBD

A crucial middleweight fight between a pair of streaking wrestlers has been booked to headline a UFC on Fuel TV card this summer.

Mark Munoz and Chris Weidman have agreed to fight on July 11 at UFC on Fuel TV 4 – though a location has not yet been announced for the card. The fight booking was announced Tuesday night on “UFC Tonight” on Fuel TV.

Munoz (12-2, 7-2 UFC) will return for the first time since a November win over Chris Leben at UFC 138. Munoz was scheduled to get back to work right away in January at UFC on Fox: Evans vs. Davis. But an injury forced him off the card the week before his fight against Chael Sonnen. Michael Bisping was pushed up from a fight against Demian Maia to face Sonnen and, ironically, it was Weidman who stepped in on 10 days notice to fight Maia.

Munoz has won four straight since a split decision loss to Yushin Okami in August 2010. In that stretch, along with the TKO win over Leben, Munoz has decision wins over Maia and Aaron Simpson, plus a 54-second knockout win over C.B. Dollaway. His planned fight with Sonnen in January was to determine the top contender for Anderson Silva’s middleweight title.

Weidman (8-0, 4-0) stepped up to fight Maia in January on the aforementioned 10 days notice – and had to cut more than 30 pounds to make the middleweight limit. He made it, but the big cut may have taken its toll in the fight. Weidman had to grind out a unanimous decision win. But that kept him unbeaten, moving him to 4-0 in the UFC – and was his biggest victory to date.

Weidman started his UFC career on short notice against Alessio Sakara in March 2011 and won a unanimous decision. The Matt Serra-Ray Longo product from New York then had back-to-back submission wins over Jesse Bongfeldt and Tom Lawlor before his fight with Maia.

The Munoz-Weidman fight could wind up determining the next contender for the middleweight title, which Silva puts on the line July 7 against Sonnen at UFC 148 in Las Vegas.

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