Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman says that he is going to work his way back to the Octagon no matter how long the recovery time from the gruesome broken leg he suffered early in the first round in his UFC 261 fight against Uriah Hall.
Weidman broke both his tibia and fibula when Hall checked an early low-kick in their fight, immediately crumping to the canvas in agony when he attempted to put weight on it. The incident was one of the more grisly injuries ever seen inside a UFC cage and coincidentally mirrored the same injury that Anderson Silva suffered against Weidman seven years ago.
On that occasion, Silva worked himself back to full fitness and fought several times since — and Weidman says that he is going to do the same.
“It’s just so frustrating, and I know how much work it’s gonna take, but yeah, this is what I want,” he told ESPN, via MMA Fighting.
“I just know how good I am, and I want to be able to prove it. I don’t have many more years left of being able to do that. My body never felt so good before this fight. I just can’t believe this happened. It just sucks. I was really excited to show the world how good I am, to put it out there, but this happened. So I just want an opportunity to go out there and do what I know I’m capable of while I still can.
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“If I can get my body back to where I feel like I’m that guy again, I 100 percent want to fight. I want to be able to demonstrate the talents I have and put on a show and also be able to inspire other people. Coming back from this is not gonna be easy, and it’s way tougher of a recovery already the first 10 days than I could have ever imagined. So it’s gonna be a long, long road. I’m not gonna be able to walk for, I think, two months, put weight on it and stuff, so I am completely bedridden.”
Weidman revealed in the days after the injury that there was a (very) minor concern that he may require his leg to be amputated but those fears appear to have passed, but he says that he is still dealing with some of the aftereffects from the break.
“My foot still hasn’t had complete feeling come back yet, so the bottom of my foot and some of the toes are still almost like your foot fell asleep,” Weidman stated. “There’s no telling with nerves how long they take to come back or if they ever come back. It may never come back, so that’s not a good thing because I think I was talking to my surgeon or another doctor and they were saying for athletes, like the proprioceptors in your foot are super valuable obviously, so I need to get that feeling back in my foot. I could move my toes, I could feel they’re there, they’re just not normal. They’re still like sleeping. So I’m hoping that goes back.”
