Outside Source
A torn biceps tendon knocked Chris Weidman out of his boxing debut. | Getty/UFC
Much to his surprise, the injury bug followed Chris Weidman from mixed martial arts to the Sweet Science.
Weidman was slated to face Anderson Silva in a boxing match as part of the Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua card on Dec. 19 at the Kaseya Center in Miami. However, the former UFC middleweight champion was forced to withdraw from the booking due to injury and was replaced by Tyron Woodley as a result.
“The All-American” detailed the extent of his injury in a video post on Instagram.
“I didn’t think I could get hurt boxing. It’s so much easier on the body compared to MMA,” Weidman said. “And then, this happened. Tore my bicep tendon throwing a left hook. There goes that tendon. I tried to push through. I tried to give it some rest. It was 95 percent torn and because there was a bit of tendon left, it was just too painful. I couldn’t get through it. I would have been better off if the thing was completely torn after the inflammation went down from that. It would have been a little bit weaker but I think I would have been able to fight and then get the surgery afterwards.
“But unfortunately, every time I would give it rest and try to give it a shot to train again, I would feel good shadow boxing and stuff and then as soon as I would speed up my punches, it was really bad pain and then I couldn’t even hold my arm up for defense anymore.”
Weidman vs. Silva would have been the third meeting between the two rivals. Weidman upset “The Spider” to claim middleweight gold at UFC 162 in July 2013 and was victorious in the rematch at UFC 168 when the Brazilian legend broke his leg throwing a low kick.
‘It Looked Like Nothing’
Weidman announced his retirement at the beginning of year after ending his UFC tenure with a loss to Eryk Anders in December 2024. However, he quickly shifted course in hopes of taking part in the Global Fight League, which held a draft and announced two events before shutting down.
“It sucks,” Weidman said. “It’s crazy how it happened. It looked like nothing. I was sparring some professional boxer and in the first one-minute, I threw not even a hard left hook and my bicep just popped. I knew it was a problem.”
It’s unclear when the 41-year-old Weidman will be ready to return to combat sports, but he’s still holding out hope for that trilogy matchup with Silva.
“I hope it happens in the future,” Weidman said. “I was really excited. The boxing training was going well. Had a lot of fun doing it. Really fell in love with boxing so I’m hoping to get this thing healed up fast and get back into training and see if I could get that fight back with Anderson.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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