Chris Weidman is now the newest member of the Reebok family, as the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion announced the news during his stop at The MMA Hour studio in New York earlier today (Mon., Oct. 19, 2015).
To his surprise, Weidman was presented with his very own customized shoe, which was decked out in the American flag decor. And if you're wondering why it took so long for the 185-pound champion to get a deal with UFC's biggest sponsor, Lunardelli explained why.
"We literally wrote down our top roster of who we wanted. The first day we came into this thing, he was at the top of the list. We had Ronda, Conor, and Anthony and he was on the list, but he had another deal and we had to wait for that deal to end. We've been patiently waiting. He would have been one of our first signings. We obviously have a UFC deal with the entire organization which we signed in December. So all 580 fighters are wearing their Fight Kits and they are coming out with Reebok gear; we got that covered. This is, we go out and sign a few fighters that activate around the Reebok brand, our combat training business. And we picked a roster of fighters that we work with and Chris is one of those people on that roster. We made a custom shoe for Chris, and we can do the same for any of our fighters. We've done this already for a couple and there will be more coming."
LINK: UFC 194: Chris Weidman signs sponsorship deal with Reebok, lands customized sneakers (pic) - MMAmania.com