Chris Weidman: I Was At 10-20 Percent For Luke Rockhold
It was a very rough night for the now ex-UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, and perhaps others noticed he looked visibly smaller…
The UFC middleweight title fight between Chris Weidman and Luke Rockhold at UFC 194 proved to be a very hard fight to choose between. It was literally a toss of a coin, as both had all the tools required to beat their opponent’s respective style. On fight night though, it was ‘Rocky’ who emerged as the king of the 185-pounders with a gritty and brutal TKO stoppage of ‘The All-American.’
Perhaps due to the IV ban, Weidman was looking a lot smaller than Rockhold at 185 pounds, and was manhandled for the latter parts of their clash. Not only was it the belt that Weidman lost, but also the 0 on his record as the new champ erased his unbeaten record. One thing has played in Weidman’s favor in the time since, and that’s the number one contender Yoel Romero, who had just topped fellow top ranker Jacare Souza, getting allegedly popped for steroids. 
With ‘Soldier of God’ out of the picture, all of a sudden people were talking about a championship rematch. Talking with AXS TV, Weidman reveals why he performed under his usual standards against Rockhold:
“It wasn’t my night, it was his night and he deserved to win that fight,” Weidman told AXS TV. “He’s a guy I’m very capable of just completely running through. I was at maybe 10 to 20 percent of me and I was still kicking his ass for a while in there. I wasn’t where I should have been at mentally and physically, I’ll just put it at that.
“I don’t like to make excuses. Listen, I’ll just say this: It was the worst camp I ever had. A lot of things were going on. But what I felt in there was a weak guy [in Rockhold] who was ready to break before it all went downhill for me with that spinning back kick.”
It was certainly odd to see the normally dominant wrestler Weidman getting tossed around, even though it was th AKA beast ‘Rocky’ doing the tossing.
Do you think there was some undisclosed injury, or is Weidman just covering a crappy performance?
