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The shock and disbelief of what happened at UFC 261 still remains for Chris Weidman.
It’s been 11 days since [autotag]Chris Weidman[/autotag] suffered one of the most gruesome injuries in MMA history, and the shock of it all still remains for the former UFC middleweight champion.
On April 24 at UFC 261, Weidman’s right leg completely snapped after Uriah Hall checked his kick just seconds into their fight. When Weidman planted his foot afterward, it completely folded (officially a compound fracture), sending him down to the canvas in pain – but also disbelief.
During an interview with ESPN released Wednesday, Weidman spoke in great detail about what he experienced from the moment he landed the kick until he was taken away in an ambulance.
You can read some of his thoughts and watch the full interview below:
Watch a preview for the latest edition of “The Thrill and the Agony,” which goes behind the scenes of UFC 261.
Watch a preview for the latest edition of “The Thrill and the Agony,” which goes behind the scenes of UFC 261.
At the event, which took place April 24 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., welterweight champion [autotag]Kamaru Usman[/autotag] (19-1 MMA, 14-0 UFC) defeated [autotag]Jorge Masvidal[/autotag] (35-14 MMA, 12-7 UFC) with a brutal second-round knockout in the night’s headliner.
Usman’s victory left no doubt about his dominance over Masvidal, whom he defeated nine months earlier by clear unanimous decision after “Gamebred” took the fight on six days’ notice.
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In addition, [autotag]Rose Namajunas[/autotag] (10-4 MMA, 8-3 UFC) became the first two-time strawweight champion in UFC history by scoring a first-round knockout of [autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag] (21-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) with a picture-perfect head kick.
In a preview of “The Thrill and the Agony” special from UFC 261, which is available for UFC Fight Pass subscribers, we get an all-access look at the immediate aftermath of Usman and Namajunas’ wins.
You can watch that in the video above.
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Check out these super-slow-motion highlights from UFC 261, including clips of Kamaru Usman’s knockout of Jorge Masvidal.
[autotag]Kamaru Usman[/autotag] put an emphatic end to his rivalry with [autotag]Jorge Masvidal[/autotag].
Usman (19-1 MMA, 14-0 UFC) retained his UFC welterweight title against Masvidal (35-14 MMA, 12-7 UFC) in the main event of this past weekend’s UFC 261 event in Florida, by becoming the first man to stop “Gamebred” in the octagon.
“The Nigerian Nightmare” reiterated that he didn’t get his fix after defeating Masvidal via unanimous decision in their first outing at UFC 251 in July and left absolutely no doubt – if there was any – why he’s the No. 1 welterweight in the sport.
Usman’s jab was on point early, and he was able to take Masvidal down on multiple occasions. But the big surprise came in the beginning of Round 2, when Usman threw a massive lunging right, which hit Masvidal right on the button and knocked him out cold.
You can watch it all unfold in super slow-motion in the UFC 261 “Fight Motion” video highlights above.
Also featured are highlights from [autotag]Rose Namajunas[/autotag]’ championship-winning head-kick knockout of Zhang Weili, [autotag]Valentina Shevchenko[/autotag]’s dominant finish of Jessica Andrade, the damage [autotag]Anthony Smith[/autotag] inflicted on Jimmy Crute’s leg, and finishes from the preliminary card, courtesy of [autotag]Danaa Batgerel[/autotag], [autotag]Brendan Allen[/autotag] and [autotag]Randy Brown[/autotag].
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Upset with a TKO loss, Jimmy Crute thinks doctors should have let him continue fighting.
[autotag]Jimmy Crute[/autotag] saw his momentum come to a halt in the most unfortunate way.
In his biggest opportunity to date, Crute (12-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) drew former light heavyweight title challenger [autotag]Anthony Smith[/autotag] this past weekend at UFC 261, but his fight was stopped in a situation out of his control.
Smith (35-16 MMA, 10-6 UFC) threw an array of leg kicks early, landing a hard one midway through Round 1, which dropped Crute. The 25-year-old Aussie was visibly hurt, forcing him to shoot right for the takedown, which he got. He kept Smith down for the remainder of the round, but when he tried to get up to walk back to his corner, his leg gave out.
The sight of his ankle rolling prompted doctors to wave the fight off, much to the chagrin of Crute. As a result, he lost by first-round TKO due to a doctor’s stoppage, but Crute is adamant that he could have continued fighting.
“I was definitely winning that first round,” Crute told Submission Radio. “I don’t feel like they should have stopped the fight for what they did, but it is what is. Like, what can I do about it? But I do feel better after watching it back. It was close, and as soon as the injury happened, I started dominating. So, it makes me feel a bit better about the whole situation. I know they shouldn’t have stopped it, and if they didn’t stop it I would have gone out and dominated in the second round.”
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Crute explains that while he couldn’t feel his leg after getting hit in the perineal nerve, it’s a situation that’s happened before in fights. So even after he was stumbling to his stool, he expected to go out for Round 2.
“I had no idea they weren’t going to let me go,” Crute said. “Even when I stood up and I was limping, (there have) been times before where people have hurt their leg and limped around and come good, and they’ve given them the benefit of the doubt. I think they should have. I think they should have let me go out. I definitely wanted to. I feel like if I would have gone out in the second, I would have put him away. But in terms of what I felt straight away when I got him to the ground, yeah, there was a bit of urgency to finish him.
“But there’s urgency to finish him anyway. I wanted to get him out of there because I couldn’t feel my leg obviously. And then when I got on top of him, I was just surprised how easy he was to control and how easy he was to hit. I think I landed 25 ground-and-pound strikes in a row, and I definitely had a massive advantage on the ground. So yeah, there was urgency to finish just because I didn’t want to go into the second with a cooked leg. But I was very prepared to do that if I needed to.”
Currently fulfilling his mandatory two-week quarantine back home in Australia, Crute hasn’t received an exact diagnosis of his injury. It’ll be a while before he gets to find out.
“I think I did a bit of damage to my LCL,” Crute said. “I think that’s what they said it looked like when I fell. But it’s just gutting because I didn’t get the opportunity to go out on my own terms.”
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At some point, the list of MMA fighters Jake Paul says he’ll meet in the boxing ring probably will outpace the ones he hasn’t.
At some point, the list of MMA fighters [autotag]Jake Paul[/autotag] says he’ll meet in the boxing ring probably will outpace the ones he hasn’t.
After welterweight champion [autotag]Kamaru Usman[/autotag] weighed in on YouTube star-turned-boxer Paul in the days leading up to what turned out to be a vicious Usman knockout of Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261, Paul responded Tuesday.
And the same storyline he’s given to other MMA standouts, including Daniel Cormier in the past few days, Paul said he’d be glad to box Usman – and said such a bout would become Usman’s biggest payday.
“Challenge accepted,” Paul posted on Twitter. “@USMAN84kg if your boss Dana gives you permission to box me and make more money than you ever have, let me know and we can lace them up. I promise it will be your biggest pay day.”
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Challenge accepted.@USMAN84kg if your boss Dana gives you permission to box me and make more money than you ever have, let me know and we can lace them up. I promise it will be your biggest pay day.
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) April 27, 2021
Paul was cageside for Usman’s KO of Masvidal at UFC 261 in Jacksonville, Fla. While there, he was in a verbal altercation with Cormier that has made arguably more news in the days since the event than any of the three title-fight winners, and more news than the horrific (and ironic) broken leg suffered by former champ Chris Weidman.
After UFC president Dana White said after UFC 261 he has no real interest in doing business with Paul, Paul took aim at White, too, and said the UFC doesn’t pay its fighters enough. So that seems to have become his new strategy in social media communications with UFC fighters – that boxing him will pay them more than the UFC will.
Paul is coming off a knockout of former Bellator and ONE champion Ben Askren, who retired from MMA after three UFC fights.
https://youtu.be/U1zYpW4D-ak
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Did Kamaru Usman, Rose Namajunas or Valentina Shevchenko leave the biggest impression on your coming out of UFC 261?
UFC 261 gave us three championship fights in which the winners all delivered impressive finishing performances.
In the main event, welterweight champion [autotag]Kamaru Usman[/autotag] knocked out Jorge Masvidal with a vicious right hand to retain his title. In the co-headliner, [autotag]Rose Namajunas[/autotag] became a two-time strawweight champ after she dropped Zhang Weili with a beautiful head kick and finished her with some follow-up punches. And in the night’s third title fight, women’s flyweight champ [autotag]Valentina Shevchenko[/autotag] continued her reign of dominance by beating Jessica Andrade with a grappling display that led to a ground-and-pound finish.
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There’s no question each of those performances was impressive. But which one was most impressive? The “Spinning Back Clique” panel of “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Farah Hannoun broke it down with host John Morgan.
You can watch their discussion in the video above, or check out this week’s full episode below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzjbJbtcnW4
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Chris Weidman has a long and arduous road to recovery ahead of him.
Three days later, and we’re still in shock by [autotag]Chris Weidman[/autotag] breaking his leg in a most ironic and horrific fashion at UFC 261, where Uriah Hall won by injury TKO just 17 seconds into their fight after he checked a kick.
By now you must have seen the gruesome footage reminiscent of Dec. 28, 2013 when Anderson Silva’s leg snapped after Weidman checked his kick to win their rematch at UFC 168.
On Monday, roughly 24 hours after surgery, Weidman expressed disbelief by this happening to him. He also described the procedure to repair his leg.
“They put a titanium rod through the tibia. So they go through the knee, and they take the rod and they drill it through the tibia to make it straight and hard. My fibula was broken, as well, but I guess when they put the tibia back together and my leg was straight, the fibula kind of matched back up to where it was broken, and they feel that could heal on its own as long as I’m not putting weight on it and stuff.”
You can see that in the before-and-after X-rays that Weidman shared on Tuesday (via Twitter):
Few X-rays pre-surgery and post-surgery pic.twitter.com/7zLrBH4jZt
— Chris Weidman (@chrisweidman) April 27, 2021
Weidman has seemed upbeat in the videos he’s shared from a Jacksonville hospital. He said he expected to be discharged Tuesday and would fly home to Long Island on a private jet provided by UFC president Dana White.
It’s sure to be a long and arduous road to recovery for Weidman, and we wish him well.
The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.
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Chris Weidman clarifies what happened at UFC 168 in response to critics claiming karma after his own gruesome leg break at UFC 261.
When [autotag]Chris Weidman[/autotag] broke his leg this past Saturday at UFC 263, many people jumped to say it was karma.
Weidman (15-6 MMA, 11-6 UFC), who had his right leg snapped after throwing a kick that was checked by Uriah Hall, was on the receiving end of the same injury that [autotag]Anderson Silva[/autotag] suffered when Weidman checked his leg kick in their December 2013 rematch at UFC 168.
As soon as Silva went down, then-middleweight champion Weidman threw his hands up in celebration, an action for which he was heavily criticized at the time. But Weidman said that he initially had no idea Silva suffered such a gruesome injury and went to console him as soon as he realized what actually happened.
Weidman felt the need to explain himself Tuesday after some people unfortunately reveled in his horrific leg break, as though it was karma for the way he handled Silva’s injury.
https://t.co/zILGts30y5 pic.twitter.com/QOwGEjCd6y
— Chris Weidman (@chrisweidman) April 27, 2021
“Anyone saying I celebrated when Anderson’s leg snapped is entirely wrong. I didn’t know his leg snapped. I just thought I checked his leg kick good, and he went down in pain, which often happens in sparring. Painful for a short time, but gets better quickly – kind of like a body shot. After circling the octagon, I realized that he was in severe pain by his yelling and immediately went and checked on him and tried to console him. That’s when I noticed him holding his leg in place. There was no happiness on my behalf from that point on. I then went and pushed security out of the way so his coaches could get into the octagon and he could have some familiar faces next to him during that horrific event.”
Following Weidman’s injury, Silva took to social media to wish him a speedy recovery, which Weidman was very appreciative of. In his most recent update, Weidman shared the positive news that he’s moving around with a walker just three days later and is expected to be discharged from the hospital Tuesday, He’ll fly home in a private jet courtesy of UFC president Dana White.
“Update day number 2.
The PT team got me to walk with a walker today. Not fun. Also, my bladder numbers were high, and I couldn’t go to the bathroom, so they told me I would have to get a catheter. I don’t want that, so I told them to give me an hour, and if I couldn’t do it by then, they could do Catheter. Thank God I was able to get it done. After deep concentration for an hour, I could pee that out, so I didn’t have to get the catheter. The reason why it was so hard is that I’m doing it lying down, and I have Anesthesia and pain killers in me. 👍 #ufc261 #recovery”
https://www.instagram.com/p/COI5tccLk65/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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What a tremendous quote from Jorge Masvidal.
Jorge Masvidal went from laughing at Kamaru Usman to being knocked out by Kamaru Usman in just a matter of seconds in their fight last Saturday night at UFC 261 in Jacksonville.
It was a wild sequence in the second round that saw Usman using a perfectly timed overhand right to knock Masividal unconscious and retain his welterweight belt.
The knockout, which led to a number of stunning photos, was so good that it even impressed Masvidal, who told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani on Monday that it was “beautiful technique” by Usman.
Here’s the full quote, which is so awesome.
I thought he was going in for a shot and when I realized it wasn’t a shot, it was too late. I was throwing my check left hook but it was already too late. I read the information wrong. So he sold it to me beautifully and that’s why he got those results. Gosh. Of that moment right there, I am a fan. Because I love the sport so much. It’s just beautiful technique.
Jorge Masvidal can appreciate "beautiful technique," even if he's on the wrong end of it.
(via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/U441Oi8krz
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) April 27, 2021
All class from Masvidal.
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