Maia (9-0) has already tapped out all four of his opponents in the UFC and would build a strong case to challenge for Anderson Silva's UFC middleweight title if Maia gets past Sonnen (21-9-1), who is ranked the fifth best middleweight in the MMAFighting.com rankings.
Sonnen is coming off a three-fight stint with the WEC and on Nov. 5 won a unanimous decision over WEC middleweight champ Paulo Filho, who at the time was widely considered to be the number two middleweight in the world. But because Filho failed to make weight at a whopping seven pounds over, the fight was only three rounds and Sonnen did not walk away with the belt.
Sonnen has fought for the UFC three times before from October 2005 to May 2006. The Team Quest fighter defeated Trevor Prangley and lost to Renato "Babalu" Sobral and Jeremy Horn.
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