The former UFC middleweight champion sounds like he’s gearing up for another title run in the not-too-distant future.
Age is just a number and time is relative. Especially when you’re a former world champion who should, by all rights, still be in the prime of his career. That’s where 33-year-old Chris Weidman finds himself, now just under a decade into a pro-fighting journey that started back in 2009.
The team Serra-Longo athlete took the UFC by storm between 2011 and 2013, racking up seven wins – including two over Anderson Silva – to grab the middleweight title and take his record to an unbeaten 11-0. In the five years since, however, Weidman has competed just six more times, and lost half of those by knockout. He’s also been sidelined over those years by a string of injuries, including his knee, hand, ribs, and neck.
In July of last year, he broke his three fight losing skid to beat former TUF champion Kelvin Gastelum. But, Weidman hasn’t fought since. The reason? An ongoing injury to his left thumb, which he apparently dislocated during the UFC on FOX 25 main event.
“Basically, they took the tendon out of my wrist to anchor my thumb into the socket because the ligament had torn,” Wediman revealed in an interview with ESPN. “[The doctor] kind of did tell me, it’s almost the equivalent of doing an ACL on a knee. I’m like, ‘What? What happened to that six-week mark you were talking about?’”
That was back in November. And while it sounds like he’s still rehabbing, Weidman also sounds pretty confident that he’ll be able to make a major impact on the middleweight division when he returns. He talked about his expected comeback in a recent interview on the MMA Hour (transcript via MMA Mania).
“I have some great fights coming for myself,” Weidman told Ariel Helwani. “I have accomplished a lot, but I am still young in my MMA career, as far as fights. I have a lot of great things coming. I’m not to the point where I am going to start looking back and wishing or saying ‘If I wasn’t injured for that, or this things would be different.’ I am very blessed in where I am in this sport. I am blessed for everything I have accomplished so far and I am blessed with the abilities that I have.
“When I speak and say I am the best in the world and have the capability to dominate everybody in my weight class, I really believe that. If I give half of my energy to this sport and really didn’t give 100-percent of my mental to this sport, then I could finish my career as a fan favorite; win some, lose some, win some big fights, lose some big fights. But I feel I really have the mentality and the physical abilities to completely dominate my weight class. I have to get back physically first with this hand, and get my mentality where I need to be and I can run through everybody.”
With his win over Gastelum, and Luke Rockhold talking about moving to light heavyweight – not to mention Robert Whittaker already having beaten Jacare Souza and Derek Brunson – if Whittaker comes out of UFC 225 with the belt still around his waist, Weidman could easily be right in title contention. Especially so if he can finish rehabbing and get another big win sometime over the summer.
Time off isn’t usually something fighters are looking for, and injuries are always bad news. But, in Weidman’s case, all his time on the sidelines may have left him as fighter best positioned for the kind of return run he so clearly sees for himself.