Injury Update: Chris Weidman Headed For Scopes In Both Knees Next Tuesday

UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman sent shockwaves through the MMA world on Monday when it was announced that he had been forced out of his scheduled UFC 173 headliner against former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida.

The New York-based fighter won’t be out long, however, as his title fight with Machida has been slated for UFC 175 on July 5, less than two months later. On tonight’s edition of “UFC Tonight,” Ariel Helwani detailed just what the champion’s exact situation is:

“He’s been battling knee problems since high school, and he had a meniscal tear in his left knee since high school, a meniscal tear in his right knee since high school, and he’s just been kind of battling through this throughout his entire career. And every, six or so months, the left one would get locked, and it would be very painful, but it would happen once or twice a year.

Well, it happened twice in the last week. It’s really swelled up, it’s been very painful, and he decided, finally, he needs to get this thing cleaned out. He’s gonna have a scope on his left knee to clean it up; he has that tear there and he just wants to move on with his career and not worry about it.

And while he’s doing that, he’s going to clean out the right one, which he actually had surgery on back in high school. He feels like it’s just time to clean this all up. So he’s going to have it Tuesday; four week recovery, he doesn’t expect there to be any problems for that fight on July 5.”

It may sound serious, but if Weidman has been suffering from meniscus injuries since he was a teenager, then it’s better to get them taken care of while it’s still relatively early in his championship reign.

But, that doesn’t mean that it’s any more convenient for the UFC. With four titleholders in Anthony “Showtime” Pettis, Cain Velasquez, Johny Hendricks, and now Weidman on the shelf, the promotion is badly starved for top-level draws.

Thankfully it sounds like Weidman will be back a whole lot sooner than the other champs, who are slated to hopefully return this fall.

It’s already a rocky start for Weidman, however. Many fans and media are already picking Machida to take his belt after “The Dragon” has appeared reinvented at his new home of middleweight.

Weidman’s return could go one of two ways. He could show up rejuvenated with his knee issues behind him and continue to prove his detractors wrong, or he could still be hindered by the injuries and fight at less than one hundred percent.

Which one do you think it will be?

Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea for USA TODAY Sports