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“I’m training in my basement – my unfinished, cold basement – every day.”
Prior to Dana White’s announcement that all UFC events had been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman was training in complete isolation for his headlining middleweight bout with Jack Hermansson at UFC Fight Night 174.
Speaking to MMA Fighting on Thursday, ‘All-American’ revealed his training preparation for the now-cancelled matchup and said he was concerned about Matt Serra and Ray Longo not being in his corner on fight night.
“I’m training in my basement – my unfinished, cold basement – every day,” Weidman said. “If it’s a nice day out, I’ll go for a bike ride, I’ll come back and do a bag workout, or I’ll lift weights, or get on the treadmill. I’ve got a treadmill. That’s been pretty much my go-to. I got quarantined four weeks ago today, (and) I’ve been in my house. Working out where we think it’s proper, no jiu-jitsu, wrestling. No partners. No coaches. No mits. Just on my own.”
“I won’t have a cornerman,” Weidman revealed. “[Ray] Longo’s not going to come out. I don’t know. I just don’t know what the hell’s happening. I’m going to have Longo and Matt [Serra] on Facetime. It’s not even right of me to even ask them to come out.
“Longo’s definitely not [coming]. He’s older, and I just feel like anybody who has a family, I don’t even feel right asking them. Putting them in any kind of harm’s way, and then they have to go back to their family. [They’ll] probably have to be quarantined from their family for a while.”
Weidman, 35, last fought at UFC on ESPN 6, where he was knocked out by Dominick Reyes in the first round. The Serra-Longo product is 1-5 in his last six fights has been removed from the UFC’s top-fifteen middleweight rankings.