Gegard Mousasi is preparing to fight John Salter in the main event of Bellator 264 tonight, but beforehand he was asked his opinion on Chris Weidman’s determination to make a comeback despite having to now undergo a second surgery to fix the broken leg he suffered earlier in the year.
Mousasi actually fought Weidman in his final UFC fight before joining Bellator, TKO’ing him in the second round at UFC 210 in 2017, and given that the former middleweight champion is now 37-years-old and at the tail-end of his career, ‘The Dreamcatcher’ believes he would be wise to hang up his gloves for good.
“It’s not nice to see a fight like that,” Mousasi said on the ‘What The Heck’ podcast when asked about Weidman’s leg break against Uriah Hall. “You don’t wish that on anybody.
“If it was me and if I had 29 surgeries, I would say this is not good. And especially if you get knocked out three or four times in a row, and then you break your leg in a bad way where it’s going to take a year to recover, at this age — he’s a little bit older than me I think, 37 maybe, and he’s going to come back at 38 or 39 — it’s difficult to come back. And then how long are you going to continue? At 38 or 39, you’re over your peak. You know what I mean?
“It’s not like you’re going to get better, especially coming [off] losses, losses, losses. That’s my opinion — I wouldn’t continue. If I had a serious injury like that, I would right away stop fighting at his age. At his age, I would retire.”
While everyone is rooting for Weidman’s recovery, Mousasi won’t be alone in questioning his desire to keep fighting as, even beyond the leg break, the ex-champ’s recent fight-record does make for grim reading, having lost six of his last eight fights, including the alarming stat that five of those losses were by strikes, including three KO’s, with the other defeat being his badly broken leg.
No-one can question Weidman’s toughness though as he still attempts to recover enough to fight again, and perhaps having that goal in his mind is helping keeping him focused and mentally strong as he tries to battle through this traumatic time in his career.
