When it comes to mixed martial arts, the passion still burns strong for Chris Weidman.
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.”
