UFC: Former UFC Middleweight champ Chris Weidman gives update on hand surgery

Chris ‘the All-American’ Weidman (14-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) became the UFC Middleweight champion back in July 2013 defeating then invincible MMA legend Anderson ‘the Spider’ Silva via KO in the second round to shock the world. Weidman then again defeated Silva in a rematch as Silva sustained one of the worst injury in the history of the sport. Weidman then went on a tear and made two more Brazilian MMA legends in Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort bite the dust.

Weidman has had a rough patch since then. Weidman lost his title to Luke Rockhold at UFC 194 in December 2015. Rockhold unleashed a barrage of punches by ground and pound handing Weidman the first loss of his career. Weidman then again faced a crushing defeat as former middleweight interim title challenger Yoel Romero knocked him out via a flying knee leaving him with multiple stitches in November 2016 in his home state. He then again faced a frustrating controversial defeat against current Bellator title challenger Gegard Mousasi at UFC 210 in April leaving him with three loses in a row.

Weidman was then slated to fight upcoming contender Kelvin Gastelum at UFC on Fox 25 in his home state. Weidman faced a knock down in the later part of the first round, he managed to deal with the adversity diligently submitting Gastelum in the third round and thus ting back to winning ways. Weidman however suffered a hand injury during the contest which has left him sidelined for last 10 months.

“What ended up happening was during my Kelvin Gastelum fight; round one, I hit a left hook as he was coming in on me and my thumb got kind of like jammed in. It dislocated and during the process I tore a ligament. After the fight, I ended up going to the doctor and I found out that I needed to get surgery, so I got the surgery,” Weidman explained during an appearance on The MMA Hour.

“They took a tendon out of my wrist and used that to create a ligament for my thumb. They told me it was going to be a kind of quick recovery and it ended up being eight months until I realized that – I guess during the trauma of the surgery when they drilled through the bones, it’s like a one in a million chance – the blood supply didn’t come back to the bone.

“The bones were like falling apart. It crushed all the cartilage between the joint, and that was pretty painful for the last eight months when I was trying to train and get through it,” said Weidman.

“At least now I’ve found out that there’s a problem, and they went in there. They had to fuse the joint now, so they took my hip bone and they created a new joint,” said the former UFC champion. “It’s feeling pretty good. They’re telling me six to eight weeks recovery, so it’s way better than eight months.”

“This is not a career ending thing,” he said. “Once this thing heals, we’ll start thinking about when we’re fighting and who we’re fighting.”