Weidman (photo via UFC.com)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Although Chris Weidman is scheduled to fight the man most people think is the planet’s best fighter at UFC 162, that doesn’t mean he abandoned hope of training with someone who can emulate Anderson Silva’s style. In a recent media call to promote the July 6th bout, Weidman relayed that Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson was brought in to help him prepare for “The Spider.”

“We brought in a couple of guys for the first time in my career,” Weidman said, when asked if other fighters were brought in to help him get ready,  for what will be the biggest fight of his life. “I’d say the main guy, who did a great job emulating him with the stand-up the best he could, was Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson.”

The 6’0 foot tall, welterweight competed extensively in Karate, before transitioning into MMA and signing with the UFC. Most recently, Thompson worked his way to a unanimous decision win over Nah-Shon Burrell to move his UFC record to 2-1.

Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson

“I was just getting used to a quicker guy, who’s a little smaller, but he has unorthodox striking,” Weidman noted about Thompson. “It was definitely good preparation for this fight.”

“Then I had a bunch of really good kickboxers, some kickboxer who were just living in New York City that we used, and we used a couple of time national champion boxer for the stand-up. Then at Renzo Gracie’s Academy we had a lot of good guys for jiu-jitsu too, who tried to emulate the best they could, some of the stuff Anderson Silva does on the ground. I think we did the best we could with this camp preparing for Anderson.”

Weidman (9-0) will be competing for the first time since he stopped Mark Munoz last July, while Silva (33-4) scored a TKO win over Stephen Bonnar in his last bout, which went down in October.

UFC 162 will be hosted by the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada and the main card will be available via pay-per-view.