Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman has suggested that his next fight might be his last.
The formerly dominant 185-pound champion has had a rough go of it in recent years, losing seven of his past nine fights — one of which was by a gruesome injury to his leg sustained in the opening seconds of an April 2021 bout with Uriah Hall. Weidman returned to action in August 2023, more than two years after the injury, where he was defeated in a unanimous decision to Brad Tavares.
Incredibly, in that fight with Tavares Weidman suffered a fracture to his left leg in an injury unrelated to his the badly broken right leg he suffered in 2021.
And speaking to Daniel Cormier on his YouTube channel, Weidman said that he still believes he has the technique and motivation to be one of the best in the world, he says that his body is showing signs that it can’t keep the pace.
“I’m setting myself up for the future, and I wasn’t sure. I was kind of listening to my body, just trying to get healthy. Mentally and motivational-wise, and technique-wise, I still think I’m top of the world — but my body’s just taking a beating,” Weidman told Cormier, as noted by MMA Junkie.
“This could be my last fight. I’m going to kind of make that decision throughout the training camp and see how I feel. If my body can handle a hard training camp again — and it might be the last one, it might not be.”
His fight against Silva, who has lost four of five, represents not just an opportunity for Weidman to assuage his athletic prowess, but also to perform in Atlantic City in New Jersey — a stone’s throw from where the New Yorker grew up and where many of his early experiences in MMA came.
“The reason why I even took this fight pretty quickly, it didn’t even matter who it was because it was offered in Atlantic City,” he said. “That’s where I started my career, was Atlantic City because at the time, MMA wasn’t legal in New York.
“The New York guys had to fight in Ring of Combat in Atlantic City, New Jersey, I just think it would be pretty cool to go back there where it all started and see how I feel. Obviously, it’s a good payday, see how my body feels and we’ll go from there.”
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