UFC Boston: Chris Weidman’s Last Stand

Photo by Nic Antaya for The Boston Globe via Getty Images

“I still love this sport, as much as I have since day one.” — Chris Weidman

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion, Chris Weidman, will make his light heavyweight debut against undefeated 205-pound title contender, Dominick Reyes, in the UFC on ESPN 6 main event on Friday night (Oct. 18, 2019) inside TD Garden Arena in Boston Massachusetts.

While the “All American” has been talking about an eventual move up in weight to challenge current light heavyweight kingpin, Jon Jones, as far back as 2013 (see those comments here), his recent change in divisions came more as a last-ditch effort to slam the brakes on his free-falling career. He’s here by necessity, not by choice.

Weidman, now 35, has dropped four of his last five and all four losses have come by way of knockout/technical knockout. In addition, he’s only competed once over the last two years and that ended with his face on the canvas, courtesy of Ronaldo Souza in the UFC 230 co-main event.

“Fighting brings a lot of peaks and valleys,” Weidman said. “My last few fights at middleweight haven’t gone my way. It’s been tough because I’m super competitive. But being able to support my family doing something I love is motivating. Now going up to 205, I want to win this light heavyweight championship.”

Boston will probably be Weidman’s last stand. Is he in danger of getting cut? Hardly. The “All American” is well liked by the powers that be, is a terrific ambassador for the sport, has never failed a drug test, and fights his ass off in every contest. Outside of his lofty super fight aspirations, what negative things can be said against Weidman?

I went into the archives here at Mania and the best thing I could come up with is that he’s a bad rapper. The good news for Weidman, is that every UFC fighter is a bad rapper, especially Tyron Woodley, who is challenging that universal marketing maxim that says there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

“I think my career is going to have different phases,” Weidman continued. “The highs are really high, there’s nothing like winning a big fight in front of millions of people. There’s also nothing like losing in front of millions of people. You use that to push you through those moments, to inspire you.”

It seemed like Weidman (14-4) was on his way to becoming one of the greatest middleweight champions of all time, until a lopsided loss to Luke Rockhold, coupled with debilitating injuries, left him struggling to stay in the mix. The “All American” will depart the 185-pound weight class at No. 8 in the official rankings.

A win over Reyes will do a couple of things. Not only will it give Weidman a new lease on his Octagon life, it will also validate his claims that a cut to middleweight was detrimental to his upward trajectory. It will be interesting to see what a healthy, non-depleted Weidman can do when the cage door closes tomorrow night in “Beantown.”

Safe to say this is a “must win” situation.