Chris Weidman has once again found himself battling a major setback, this time, not inside the Octagon but in the boxing ring.
The former UFC middleweight champion was gearing up for a long-awaited trilogy showdown with Anderson Silva on the Dec. 19 Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua undercard. Instead, the fight collapsed just weeks out, with Weidman forced to withdraw due to a devastating injury.
The promotion quickly replaced him with former UFC champion Tyron Woodley, marking yet another twist in what was supposed to be Weidman’s big combat-sports comeback.
Weidman retired from UFC competition after losing to Eryk Anders at UFC 310 last December. He briefly signed with the Global Fight League, but after the promotion shut down its events indefinitely, he shifted his focus to boxing, until his body gave out on him once again.
Returning to social media after weeks of silence, Weidman finally opened up about what really happened in training.
“I didn’t think I could get hurt boxing,” Weidman said. “It’s so much easier on the body compared to MMA. 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.”
His attempt to recover without surgery didn’t go well.
“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.”
The injury happened early during sparring, and according to Weidman, it didn’t even come from a hard shot.
“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.”
With surgery now behind him, Weidman is shifting gears toward recovery and planning his next move. Despite being sidelined, he isn’t ruling out stepping into the ring in 2026 and he still wants the Silva trilogy.
“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.”
For now, Anderson Silva will face Tyron Woodley on Dec. 19 in Miami, but Weidman’s story isn’t finished. Not even close.
