On the heels of tonight’s successful
STRIKEFORCE® event at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., the Ultimate Fighting Championship® announced that it will return to the venue on Wednesday, July 11 with an action-packed card. Headlined by an explosive five-round fight between middleweight contenders
Mark Munoz and
Chris Weidman, the event will also showcase San Jose’s own
Jon Fitch battling
Aaron Simpson in welterweight action.
All four competitors were standouts in collegiate wrestling and have since made the impressive transition to mixed martial arts. Munoz won a Division I national championship in 2001 at Oklahoma State, while Weidman, unbeaten at 8-0 in his professional MMA career, was a two-time All-American at Hofstra. The winner of their clash on July 11 is expected to emerge as a top challenger to the middleweight title.
San Jose’s Fitch captained the 2002 Purdue University wrestling team, and his opponent on July 11, Simpson, was a two-time All-American at Arizona State who also competed at the 2004 Olympic trials. Both look to climb the ranks in the highly-competitive
UFC 170-pound division when they meet at “The Shark Tank.”