Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman had to pull out of his middleweight title fight with Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 with an injury. Weidman appeared on The MMA Hour on Tuesday to talk to Ariel Helwani about the injury. Weidman revealed that he has four bulging discs and two herniations, but only one of those has produced symptoms that are forcing him to undergo surgery.
“It’s going to be sooner rather than later,” he said, when asked when the surgery would take place. “The other thing I was running into is some doctors who were saying you’ve got to get this taken care of now, like ASAP because the nerve is getting damaged every second of every day. And then other doctors were like, you know, there’s a good chance if you just wait another couple of weeks it just goes away completely. I don’t know what to believe. But looks like I’m going to be getting surgery in the next week or two.”
Longtime pro wrestler Kurt Angle reached out to Weidman and suggested that Weidman has Dr. Jho Technique do the surgery in Pittsburgh. Weidman explained that the surgeon would drill a small hole in the front of his neck through his vertebrae to get out the herniation. Weidman said that the surgery is low risk, and it’s not career threatening.
“We’ve been texting and direct messaging back and forth, and he gave me a lot of great advice,” Weidman said. “And I had a 45-minute conversation with Mark Coleman because he got the same surgery done from Dr. Jho in Pittsburgh. So he was high on it. He walked right out of there feeling 100 percent. He had issues in his neck about two years.”
“Honestly, I can’t imagine losing this next fight, I just felt so damn good,” he said. “That’s what sucks, is I just felt more ready than ever.”
“I mean, everybody’s just concerned about my well-being right now,” he said. “Obviously, I want to fight for the belt, but the main thing is I get my neck taken care of.”
When asked if he would be fighting at UFC 205 at MSG on November 12th, Weidman replied by saying that he would be fighting at that show.
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