Coach: Should I have pulled Weidman from fight?
Chris Weidman’s coach Ray Longo: “I feel bad. Maybe I should have been more vocal about this or that. You can’t make excuses.”
Ray Longo, coach to former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, spoke recently with ESPN’sBrett Okamoto and discussed fighting with injuries. Weidman fought Lyoto Machida with a broken hand, and won. He fought Alessio Sakara with a cracked rib, and won. And he fought Luke Rockhold with a broken foot, and lost.
Noting that generally everyone fights hurt, and that new champion Luke Rockhold fought on antibiotics for a staph infection, it is impossibly hard to definitively say an injury led to a loss, but Longo wanted it noted. Further, Longo said it is the fighter who makes the decision to fight or not, and usually the answer is fight, but he wonders if he should have pulled Weidman.
“If you want to know the truth, he was banged up,” said Longo. “He had a fractured foot in two places. We tried to work around it, but I think mentally it had an effect on him, because he wasn’t able to push the cardio the right way.”
“He has fought with injuries before. I’ve seen this guy walk through fire before — but as his coach, I feel bad. Maybe I should have been more vocal about this or that. You can’t make excuses. His teammate, Aljamain Sterling, was banged up going into his fight on Dec. 11 and he won. So, you never know.
“If you decide to fight, what can you do during camp? Put a boot on him, so someone takes a picture and he’s walking around in a boot? He didn’t wear one. It’s a nightmare. And these guys are my friends, so I’m in a weird spot sometimes. You basically have to tell them they’re not doing it.”
The good news is, Weidman and Rockhold will rematch at UFC 199 in June.
