Quote: No One Believes GSP vs. Whittaker Will Happen
Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman finally got back to his winning ways this past July, submitting Kelvin Gastelum in the main event of UFC on FOX 25 from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island, New York. Prior to that fight, Weidman had lost three consecutive bouts to the likes of Luke Rockhold, Yoel Romero and Gegard Mousasi.
Now back in the win column, Weidman should be gearing up for another big fight. Unfortunately, he’s still dealing with a thumb injury, and the setback has kept him on the sidelines longer than he had expected it to:
“My hand is going all right — not great,” Weidman told ESPN. “I’m not really sure how long it’s going to be. I was with UFC’s physical therapist, and she was hoping maybe in two months I could be 100 percent. There’s no telling. I guess it’s a unique injury.
“Basically, they took the tendon out of my wrist to anchor my thumb into the socket because the ligament had torn,” he continued. “[The doctor] kind of did tell me, it’s almost the equivalent of doing an ACL on a knee. I’m like, ‘What? What happened to that six-week mark you were talking about?’”
In Weidman’s absence, the state of the middleweight division is in a bit of a flux.
Former longtime welterweight kingpin Georges St. Pierre recently returned from a four-year layoff to submit Michael Bisping at UFC 217 in New York City. Now the undisputed 185-pound titleholder, St. Pierre should likely meet interim champion Robert Whittaker, but Weidman said that ‘no one really believes that’s going to happen’:
“You have ‘GSP’ possibly fighting Whittaker, but no one really believes that’s going to happen — even though [UFC president] Dana White is swearing up and down about it. There’s just no certainty about who’s going to be champion in the next year in the UFC,” said the former champion. “Who am I going to be able to take the belt from? I guarantee you it’s not gonna be ‘GSP.'”
How do you expect the middleweight title picture to unfold, and who would you like to see Weidman fight upon his return?
