Weidman vs. Hall 2 verbally agreed on for UFC 258
A rematch ten years in the making could be added to UFC 258 in February.
Chris Weidman and Uriah Hall are reportedly set to meet again for the first time in a decade.
Per a report from Ariel Helwani of ESPN, Weidman and Hall have verbally agreed on a rematch that will take place in February on the upcoming UFC 258 card. The fight agreements have yet to be signed, but it appears that will be sorted soon as Weidman apparently alluded to on social media just hours before the announcement was made.
Weidman and Hall first met in 2010 at Ring of Combat 31, where then-champion Hall was defending his newly acquired championship against Weidman. It took a little over three minutes for Weidman to finish Hall, picking up a technical knockout win and claiming the championship in one round. This marked the first loss in the professional career of Hall.
After this fight, both men had very different paths to the UFC. Weidman successfully defended his ROC championship against Valdir Araujo in his next appearance at Ring of Combat 33 and was called up to the UFC exactly three months later. Weidman went on to fight four more times before earning a title shot against former middleweight kingpin, Anderson Silva, who he famously knocked out at UFC 162.
Between then and now, Weidman has alternated between wins and losses as well as weight classes before making his inevitable return to the 185-pound division where he most recently earned a unanimous decision over Omari Akhmedov at UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Oleinik. The Akhmedov win snapped a two-fight losing streak against longtime contenders in Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza and Dominick Reyes respectively.
Hall spent a few more years fighting for Ring of Combat before becoming a contestant on the seventeenth season of the Ultimate Fighter. Hall made it to the finale after three straight knockout victories, but came up short against eventual season winner, Kelvin Gastelum, at the the Ultimate Fighter Finale in 2013.
Hall stayed with the promotion for years to come, faring quite well against names like Chris Leben, Thiago Santos and Gegard Mousasi, but would begin losing pivotal fights in the middleweight division. He has since turned things around as he is now on a three-fight win streak that is punctuated with a statement win over the aforementioned Silva at UFC Vegas 12.
Both men have expressed interest in fighting for the UFC middleweight championship soon, so this matchup between the currently ranked No. 9 and No. 10 fighters will likely move them closer to this goal.
There is no word on where this pay-per-view event will be held, but more information should be made available in the coming months.