Top 5 Stories of the Week

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Alistair Overeem’s loss turned into Antonio Silva’s gain.

Cain Velasquez will defend his Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight crown against “Bigfoot” Silva in the UFC 160 main event on May 25 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Overeem will lock horns with former champion Junior dos Santos in the co-headliner.

Velasquez’s pairing with Silva will serve as a rematch of their one-sided UFC 146 encounter in which the American Kickboxing Academy ace grounded and gashed “Bigfoot” with devastating ground-and-pound en route to a bloody first-round technical knockout. Velasquez used the performance as a springboard in December, as he avenged his 2011 defeat to dos Santos and reclaimed the heavyweight title in a dominant unanimous decision at UFC 155.

Three years older than the champion, Silva has posted back-to-back victories since his ill-fated duel with Velasquez. He finished the previously unbeaten Travis Browne in October before throwing the oddsmakers a serious curveball in his UFC 156 battle with Overeem on Feb. 2. There, Silva scored a spectacular third-round knockout, stopping a fatigued an overconfident “Demolition Man” with a ferocious volley of power punches just 25 seconds into the final frame. The defeat was Overeem’s first since 2007.

The stories of interest on Sherdog.com this week:

Heavyweight Rematch

Phenomenal Pairing

Price of Gold

Axing Wrestling

His Own Man

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