Former UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman has shared an update on his recovery following a second successful surgery on his leg.
Having returned to the win column in 2020 with a unanimous decision victory over Omari Akhmedov, Weidman had hoped to jump one step closer to a shot at Israel Adesanya’s 185-pound gold with an impressive performance against Uriah Hall at UFC 261.
But in front of the first sold-out crowd in over a year, the 37-year-old suffered a devastating injury. While throwing the first strike 17 seconds into the main card bout, Weidman’s leg broke on impact with Hall’s check. It was certainly one of the worst injuries in UFC history and, remarkably, the second broken leg Weidman had been involved in with the promotion, with Anderson Silva’s 2013 break the other.
Having undergone successful surgery shortly after the horrific injury, Weidman began his long road to recovery, which had shown signs of rapidly developing in recent months. As early as June, the 37-year-old was already back walking and in the gym.
But despite appearing to be progressing well, and even sharing footage of himself lightly sparring, Weidman recently revealed that his leg wasn’t healing properly, meaning another surgery was required.
And now, having successfully gone under the knife for the second time since his leg break, Weidman has provided a further update on his condition and the operation through a video uploaded to Instagram. Describing the procedure, the former UFC champ revealed the surgery had been a success, but went on longer than doctors had expected.
“Hi all! I’m home. The surgery went very well. The original plan of surgery was to take out a butterfly fracture on the tibia bone and secure the fibula with a plate and screws because it was not healing correctly. Apparently when they opened my leg up the fibula was more of a problem than expected which required a longer surgery and more hardware,” wrote Weidman.
The #12-ranked middleweight added that he’s pain-free right now, and will be providing further updates on his condition on social media and through his YouTube channel.
“I do not have any pain right now because I have a nerve block on my leg which can last up to 48 hours.
“Im pretty damn tired and so I will sleep for a while, but I will be uploading a video to my YouTube channel to share all the details of the post-surgery. And I will also make minor updates here on my IG on how I am feeling.”
Would you like to see Chris Weidman return to action once he’s recovered? Or do you agree with Gegard Mousasi’s calls for him to retire?
