You never know until fight night, but as far as I’m concerned, UFC 162 is the best pay-per-view the UFC has put together all year long. In the main event of the evening we have a fight that has been the talk of the combat sports world for the last year, as up-and-comer Chris Weidman finally gets his chance to take home the UFC middleweight championship when he faces off against pound-for-pound kingpin Anderson Silva in what should be one of the best fights of the year. This is a fight that has been talked about ever since Weidman knocked out Mark Munoz at UFC on FUEL TV 4 and, although I believe Weidman will lose this weekend, I still think it’s going to be an excellent fight as I believe Weidman will give Silva one of his toughest challenges yet to date inside the Octagon. Of course, I don’t think that’s going to be good enough to beat Silva, but still, it should be a hell of a fight. In the co-main event, former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar squares off against Charles Oliveira in a must-win fight for him. With three losses in a row on his record, Edgar needs to get a win to not only stay relevant in the title picture but also to keep his job with the UFC and so he’ll need to take out Oliveira in impressive fashion to prove he’s still one of the best. As for Oliveira, this is a good opportunity for him to prove he’s still a force to be reckoned with at 145 so look for a great performance from him as well. And then there’s two middleweight fights on the docket. In the first, Roger Gracie takes on Tim Kennedy in a battle of Strikeforce newcomers. This should be a really good fight because I think both guys are very high-level grapplers and I see the fight hitting the floor at some point, so the fans should be treated to either a great finish or three rounds of high-level, back-and-forth grappling. And then there’s also Tim Boetsch vs. Mark Munoz, and I think this should be another very good fight between two top-10 middleweights, a fight that will keep the winner in title contention while pushing the loser down to gatekeeper status. And finally, the opening fight of the PPV card is a featherweight matchup between Cub Swanson and Dennis Siver. Swanson is 4-1 in the UFC’s featherweight division while Siver is 2-0, so both guys are definitely nearing in on a title shot and so this should be an exceptional bout that will prove who really does have what it takes to fight for a UFC title and who is just a pretender in the division. All five of these fights are very competitive matchups on paper with title implications, which is something you really can’t say for all five fights on the main cards of the UFC’s first six PPVs of the year (UFC 156, UFC 157, UFC 158, UFC 159, UFC 160 and UFC 161). You never know how the fights will play out on fight night, but at least on paper, UFC 162 is the best PPV of 2013 and this weekend should bring a ton of excitement to the homes of all the MMA fans worldwide and those lucky enough to be at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV.
