Weidman, 39, made his return after 847 days on the sidelines as he lost a decision to Brad Tavares at UFC 292 on Saturday night. ‘The All American’ broke his right leg in the opening seconds of his fight against Uriah Hall in April 2021 and he endured a vicious attack from Tavares on his other leg over the course of 15-minutes in their fight.
The former UFC middleweight champion limped his way out of the cage after the defeat and was even helped by Tavares as they walked backstage together. Weidman, who is now without a win in over three years, is expected to have suffered another knee injury in his latest loss as UFC boss White said he has nothing left to prove in the sport.
“I love Chris Weidman, I love him,” White said. “I love his family. I think he should retire. We talked to Dr. [Davidson] and he thinks he blew his ACL, MCL. He blew one of the CLs [cruciate ligaments]. The guy is just coming back from a gruesome injury and father time is not our friend at all, but definitely if you’re a professional athlete.”
‘Chris, I love you. Please, please retire. Weidman reached the pinnacle of the sport and did it in spectacular fashion, knocking out the greatest of all time [Anderson Silva]. What now? Why? To come back and feel it one more time. He felt it tonight, and he blew his knee out and he’s going to have to go through crazy surgery again and recover from it. It’s just like, why? You’ve done it all. You’ve accomplished everything that you could hope to accomplish in the UFC.”
Weidman shocked the MMA world a decade ago by becoming the first man to beat Silva in the UFC when he knocked the Brazilian out a decade ago. Silva broke his leg in their rematch and Weidman went on to defend his middleweight title against Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort before losing it to Luke Rockhold.
The American struggled to ever bounce back to winning ways as seven of his past nine fights have ended in defeat. Despite White’s plea for him to hang up his gloves, Weidman has insisted that he isn’t done with fighting as he said: “I’m not done, so I’ll be back better than ever but this was a good opportunity for me to get back in the octagon.”