When it comes to mixed martial arts, the passion still burns strong
for Chris
Weidman.
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The former middleweight champion will return to action in his home
state when he faces Eryk Anders
at UFC 309
on Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden in New York. It’s been a long
road to recovery for Weidman since suffering a gruesomely broken
leg in a loss to Uriah Hall at
UFC 261 in April 2021. “The All-American” earned his first victory
since that injury on March 30, taking a
controversial technical decision over Bruno Silva
at
UFC on ESPN 54.
Weidman turned 40 in June, and given his injury history — he claims
to have had 30 surgeries throughout his body (including 14 on his
leg alone) — it would be reasonable to assume that the finish line
might be in sight. For now, he’s still enjoying MMA and doesn’t
plan on making any hasty decisions no matter what happens at UFC
309. However, he’s also realistic about his long-term future in the
sport.
“I’m pretty much taking it fight by fight,” Weidman recently told
MMAFighting.com. “I’ll make my decision after
the fight. I’m not planning on putting my gloves down or anything
like that either win or lose. But I’m planning to just not make any
rushed decisions.
“Right now, I still feel great. I’m excited. I love training. I
love being in camps. I love just the whole discipline of it and how
it keeps you on routine. It’s really addictive. I’m super
competitive so it’s just like the ultimate best thing for me to be
doing. But obviously you can’t do it forever. So that’s why I’ve
got to take it fight by fight and kind of just weigh the pros and
cons of everything and see where we’re at.”
Weidman recently received a harsh dose of reality outside of the
MMA realm when he participated in a baseball challenge with his
son.
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“With MMA, I still feel great, I still feel fine on the mats. I
don’t feel 40 year years old, all these surgeries, I still feel
great. I’m going with these younger guys and doing as good as
usual. As good as I ever have,” Weidman said. “But when it comes to
other sports, I feel like I slowed down. Sports specifically for
MMA, my body has adjusted and I know I’ve got situations to stay
away from that would hurt me. I’ve been able to be dominant in
those positions that I’m going into. But I played baseball the
other day with my son, both my kids are on these travel baseball
teams.
“We had to see who could throw harder, so they had the gun out so
they could measure the speed, and I was never the fastest thrower,
but my 12-year-old son is not going to beat me on the speedometer
thing. He beat me bad. He threw a 62, I threw a 51 and my shoulder
hurt and I felt terrible. Like two pitches, and I’m done. It was
awful. Then we got to switch it around and your kid got to pitch to
you to see if he could strike you out as if it was a real game,
you’ve got the balls and everything going, an umpire. He struck me
out and I’m telling you 10 years ago, I will say I really believe
that would not have happened. I think I would throw harder, and I
think I’m hitting the ball off of him. The age definitely, I felt
old doing that. But when I’m in the MMA gym, I still feel
good.”
Of course, much will be determined by how Weidman performs against
Anders on fight night, but he does feel confident based on his
training.
“Honestly, I’m still taking it fight by fight to see how I feel, to
see how I perform. Right now in the gym my body, I feel good and
I’m doing great in the gym but I’ve got to be able to perform under
the lights,” he said.
“So that’s all just fight to fight at this point at my age and
everything. We’ll see how I feel and we’ll just play it from
there.”