Weidman Unhappy With ‘Disrespectful’ UFC 292 Prelim Slot

Weidman’s return fight against Brad Tavares didn’t crack the UFC 292 pay-per-view, and the former middleweight champ is unimpressed with his placement on the card.

It’s been a rough road for former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman. After beating Anderson Silva (twice) for the title, “The All-American” defended his title twice before losing it to Luke Rockhold in December 2015.

Since then there’s been a lot of red on Weidman’s record. He’s gone 5-2 over the last eight years, and suffered a horrific leg break injury in his last loss to Uriah Hall. It’s been over two years since then and the 39-year-old has dealt with a lot of setbacks as he rehabbed that injury.

Now he’ll return at UFC 292 against Brad Tavares, which is a relatively soft match-up. That’s nice. Not so nice? The UFC putting the fight on the prelims.

“It’s kind of disrespectful, to be honest. I’m not gonna pretend like it’s not,” Weidman said during an interview with ESPN. “To be out for two years with a broken injury, I broke my leg on the mats of the UFC on a pay-per-view, first card since COVID, first fully packed arena in Jacksonville; put my body on the line and they put me on a prelim? That’s a bad idea.”

“You know what? It probably works out for everybody at the end of the day because it’s a little bit of motivation,” he said. “Like, ‘Alright, at first you disrespect me like that. What, you think I’m done?’ No, I’m here to make a statement.”

It’s worth noting that Weidman isn’t just anywhere on the UFC 292 prelims. He’s in the featured prelim right before the pay-per-view starts. There was a lot of controversy back at UFC 290 when the UFC put Robbie Lawler in the same slot for his retirement bout. That’s just what the UFC does now: they’ll put their elder statesmen that draw eyeballs on the free ESPN prelim to try and draw more attention to the pay-per-view.

If Chris Weidman wants to get back on the pay-per-view portion, he’ll have to put a stomp on Brad Tavares. Bookies don’t like his chances. They have Tavares a -275 favorite to +215 underdog Weidman. Then again, Robbie Lawler was a similar dog on fight week, and we saw how that went.