Mark Munoz (left) faces Chris Weidman at UFC on FUEL TV 4

The UFC on FUEL TV 4 main event will feature a middleweight contenders bout between highly ranked Mark Munoz and Chris Weidman. The winner of this bout could potentially be the next opponent for UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. The UFC on FUEL TV 4 event is set to take place later tonight, airing on FUEL TV with the main card beginning at 8 p.m. ET. Let’s see how this one breaks down.

Chris Weidman (8-0) comes into this fight off the biggest win of his short career, a unanimous decision win over former number one middleweight contender Demian Maia in January. Weidman took the fight on two weeks notice when Maia’s original opponent was scratched from the fight. Weidman comes from a wrestling background where he was a two time All-American at Hofstra University, and also has experience in submission grappling while competing in the 2009 ADCC submission grappling tournament. Weidman is fairly well rounded and does a good job of mixing up his strikes and wrestling while being versed in submissions on the ground. If I had to name a weakness it would be his cardio at times, but that’s hard to gauge since he’s taken several fights on short notice since being in the UFC.

Mark Munoz (12-2) comes into this bout on a four fight winning streak with the latest win coming against Chris Leben at UFC 138. Munoz won the bout via TKO at the end of the second round and has been out of action since that bout due to recovering from elbow surgery. Munoz has good power in his hands, excellent wrestling, and good ground and pound. Munoz has no real big weaknesses other than not being the most technical striker, but he has been rocked with punches on several occasions.

Our sponsor TopBet has Chris Weidman as the betting favorite at (-150) and Mark Munoz as the underdog at (+130).

Those odds are probably spot on. I think this is a pick’em fight with the long layoff for Munoz being the deciding factor in being the underdog. This is an extremely tough fight to call which should make for an exciting fight.

In the striking portion of this fight Weidman should have an advantage as he’s the more technical striker and has a huge reach advantage. However, according to Fightmetric Munoz is the more accurate striker historically landing 50% of his strikes. In the wrestling department Munoz is the more decorated wrestler in paper, but Weidman has been more successful in transitioning his wrestling over to MMA. He has the higher percentage of takedowns and has better takedown defense percentage wise. In the submission department I give the edge to Weidman, but Munoz is more of a ground and pound guy and doesn’t really look for submissions.

When it comes to who can end the fight I give the edge to Munoz. He has incredible power and throws punches with bad intentions both standing and on the ground. Weidman would probably have to submit Munoz to get a stoppage win. This fight will probably come down to cardio and who can transition from striking to grappling the best. I think Weidman will be able to take Munoz down as Munoz has been taken down by guys with wrestling that’s not as good as Weidman’s. The interesting question is can Weidman stop Munoz from taking him down? If not, he could be in trouble with Munoz raining down those huge donkey punches.

I think he’ll be able to stop enough of those takedowns to take the split decision win against Munoz.

Leave a Reply