Former middleweight champion Chris Weidman is eager to return to the Octagon as soon as possible, but unfortunately an ongoing injury is holding him back.
The 33-year-old was last seen defeating Kelvin Gastelum by submission at UFC On FOX 25 in July, but he then suffered a serious thumb injury in September and unfortunately its proven to be show to heal.
“I’m hoping in the next six weeks my health will turn around and I can get a couple training sessions in, get confidence in it that I can use it and then get something booked,” Weidman said on MMAjunkie Radio. “I would hope something in the early summer, but the injury I had is pretty serious. The surgery, it’s almost like doing the ACL on the hand. They restructured the ligament. They took ligaments from my wrist to create new ligaments in the base of my thumb. Hands, they take a little time to heal. It’s not the quickest body part to get a surgery on. It takes time.”
Unfortunately for Weidman, that delay in returning means he wasn’t able to land the fight he’d been hoping for next with Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, who is now booked up Gastelum at UFC 224 instead.
“I thought ‘Jacare’ was the one I was going to be fighting, but the hand is taking longer than I wanted it to be. ‘Jacare’ would be great fight for No. 1 contendership. Now that I wasn’t able to take that fight in the time I wanted, I couldn’t commit to it. I don’t know what’s next.
“I really don’t know who I would be fighting. Obviously I want to get back to that title fight, and whoever I’ve got to fight to get there, I’m willing to do it.”
