Chris Weidman will return to the Octagon for the second time this year when he fights Eryk Anders at UFC 309 on November 16th at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The 40-year-old Weidman finally got back to winning ways in March of this year when he claimed a technical decision win over Bruno Silva at UFC On ESPN 54.
For the most part it had been a solid performance from the former middleweight champion, but the ending was highly controversial due to Weidman having already eye-poked Silva more than once in the fight, and then accidentally eye-poked him twice during the fight-ending sequence in the final round.
At first the referee didn’t notice and so awarded Weidman a TKO victory, but after seeing the replay it was clear Silva had went down and been left unable to continue due to the eye-pokes he’d suffered rather than from punches. the result was then amended, and Weidman avoided being disqualified and instead was handed a technical decision win based on the scorecards up to that point.
Weidman further stoked the controversy over the ending by being unapologetic about the multiple eye-pokes, insisting that Anders should have kept fighting rather than expecting the referee to step in.
For Weidman this win had been a moment long in the making, having had to endure an arduous rehabilitation stretching over more than two years after suffering a broken leg during a fight with Uriah Hall in 2021.
Weidman had finally returned to action in August of 2023 against Brad Tavares, only to have his newly healed limb targeted throughout the fight, resulting in his second loss in a row, and 7th loss in his previous 9 fights.
So now Weidman will look to put together back-to-back wins for the first time since he was champion almost a decade ago when he goes up against the 37-year-old Anders, who is coming off a decision win against Jamie Pickett in March.
Anders is currently unranked at 185lbs and has had a patchy record throughout his 7-year UFC run, which currently stands at 8-8 (+1nc).
Weidman vs. Anders is currently the only fight officially announced for the UFC 309 event in November, which is rumored to be the potential landing spot for heavyweight champion Jon Jones long awaited fight against Stipe Miocic.
