Gegard Mousasi heads to Chris Weidman's New York turf for UFC 210 fight in Buffalo

Gegard Mousasi thought he knew the likeliest scenario for his next assignment, and he was right.

Mousasi (41-6-2 MMA, 8-3 UFC) will fight former middleweight champion Chris Weidman (13-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC) in Weidman’s home state of New York at UFC 210 in April. UFC officials announced the booking today.

UFC 210 takes place at KeyBank Center in Buffalo on April 8 with a main card on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass. The promotion just announced the event this past Saturday. And earlier this week, Mousasi said the Weidman booking was one that had been floated his way – but was waiting on the former champ to accept it.

UFC 210 will mark the UFC’s fourth trip to New York since the ban on MMA was lifted in the state this past year. It will be the first event in Buffalo since UFC 7 took place in September 1995.

Mousasi has won four straight fights since an upset TKO loss to Uriah Hall in Japan in September 2015. After that setback, he took a unanimous decision from Thales Leites to get back on track in London before stringing together three straight knockout wins for a perfect 4-0 mark in 2016.

At UFC 200 this past July, he knocked out Thiago Santos in a bonus-winning first-rounder. He followed that up with a second-round TKO of Vitor Belfort at UFC 204 in October, then a little more than a month later got his revenge on Hall with a first-round TKO in the UFC Fight Night 99 main event in Northern Ireland.

Chris Weidman

Weidman will be looking to get back on track after back-to-back knockout losses. A win would be his first in nearly two years. He won the UFC’s middleweight title with a knockout of Anderson Silva in July 2013, then defended it with a TKO later that year. Bonus-winning title defenses followed against Lyoto Machida and Belfort.

But at UFC 194, Weidman was stopped in the fourth round by a Luke Rockhold TKO and surrendered his belt in a “Fight of the Night” winner. In an attempt to get back on track 11 months later at UFC 205, the promotion’s Madison Square Garden debut in his New York City backyard, the Long Island native lost to Yoel Romero by brutal flying knee knockout.

For more on UFC 210, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.