Weidman: NY commission is amateurish, have a lot of learning to do

The UFC 210 Gegard Mousasi vs. Chris Weidman co-main event ended in controversy. Mousasi secured control of Weidman’s torso from front standing, and landed a powerful, legal knee. Referee Dan Miragliotta stopped the fight not because he thought Weidman was out but because he mistakenly believing Weidman was supporting his weight on his hands which would make the knee illegal. Weidman was given the standard five minutes to recover from an illegal blow, but upon conferring with John McCarthy who had seen a replay, Miragliotta was made to understand that the knee had been legal. Meanwhile, Weidman couldn’t remember what month it was, so Mousasi was declared the victor.

During a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Weidman said he wants a rematch, but maybe not in New York. The New York State Athletic Commission is new to regulating MMA, and thus far has looked something like CM Punk did in his UFC debut.

Did they stop the fight because they thought I was unfit to continue? asked Weidman, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. Or did they stop the fight because then, it was over five minutes and I wasn’t supposed to get any time to begin with? I don’t really know what the answer is there, but I know that me, as a fighter, I could have continued 100 percent.

I think I would have gone on to dominate Mousasi and even finish him.”

I want a rematch with Mousasi more than anything. That was a big fight for me to come back up in contention for the title, it was a great fight for me to showcase my skills and go out there and dominate him. That fight got pulled from me.

Weidman has now lost three in a row, all by stoppage. But his plans to dominate the sport are not diminished.

Definitely not, I’m 100 percent on track to do everything I said I was going to do,” said Weidman. “I’m going to win the belt at middleweight and I’m going to go up to 205 and win the belt there after I dominate the middleweight division for a little bit – that will happen. One step at a time, first we have to fight whoever pretty soon and hopefully it’s Mousasi and get that done. Hopefully, he steps up and realizes he doesn’t win that way because it’s bulls***. He was getting beat up and he knows it. Hopefully we can run that one back. He can prove he won the fight, if he can do that, and I’ll have the opportunity to prove my side that I’m a better fighter than him.

Weidman has filed a complaint with the NYSAC. It is remarkably unlikely to have any effect on the official bout outcome.

I’ll see what happens, said Weidman. I know a lot of people close to me don’t want me fighting in New York again. There’s a lot of things even, the scenes in the back, where, they’re very new and amateurish. You saw it a couple times, look at the Cormier weigh-in, it was a bunch of things that went unreported and you just could tell they have a lot of learning to do. All my fights were in Vegas or Jersey, these commissions have things done right, they take things very seriously.

The Long Island native would be a natural to co-headline UFC on FOX 25, which will be held on Long Island at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale. New York has one of the greatest commissions in the world, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, right next door. It might be useful to avail themselves of that expertise until such a time as they can host a major MMA event and not have any major mistakes.