Outside Source
Those who have followed mixed martial arts for any period of time know that retirements rarely last.
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However, Chris Weidman’s farewell was short-lived even by MMA standards. Approximately one week after announcing his retirement ahead of UFC 311, Weidman was selected in the Global Fight League draft. According to the former UFC middleweight champion, it was an opportunity he couldn’t refuse.
“The elephant in the room is I just retired from the UFC. A lot of people thought I was done fighting. I didn’t know,” Weidman said on the GFL draft stream. “I thought maybe I am done fighting. I was kind of open to other opportunities outside of the UFC, but they had to be good.”
A lot of that had to do with some of the other athletes who are currently expected to be part of the fledgling promotion.
“This is a league where there’s a lot of guys that I have a history with,” Weidman said. “You’ve got Luke Rockhold, you’ve got Gegard Mousasi, you’ve got Uriah Hall. Rockhold was my first loss ever. That was a tough pill for me to swallow. We were supposed to rematch a whole bunch of times in UFC, but it never happened. So that would be a fight I’d love to have. Uriah Hall broke my damn leg in my last fight. He was a gentleman about it, but we had fought twice.
“… It’s older dudes that I have a lot of history with. I love to compete and we make a whole lot of money. It’s not something I really feel like I can say no to. It’s really an exciting time for me.”
The 40-year-old Weidman dealt with numerous injuries over the course of his career, including the aforementioned broken leg suffered against Hall in April 2021. “The All-American” won just three of his last 11 Octagon appearances. He last fought at UFC 310, where he suffered a second-round TKO defeat to Eryk Anderson this past December.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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