Chris Weidman had to admit it: He did not love being bumped from the UFC 309 pay-per-view main card.
“I was on pay-per-view up until, like a week ago, and then they took me off. I was honestly pissed off at first,” Weidman confided to The Post on Wednesday’s media day ahead of Saturday’s event at Madison Square Garden. “Obviously, I can’t do anything about that. They do what they want to do.”
Rather than striking a bitter tone, Long Island native Weidman, who reigned as UFC middleweight champion from 2013-15 and headlined three pay-per-view events during that period, seemed to understand what he suggested may have been the logic behind the shift off the marquee portion of the event.
“If I go out there and put on a great win, what does that really do for them?” posited Weidman, who weathered a dreadful recovery from a gnarly 2021 leg fracture but also turned 40 in June. “I only have a certain amount of time left, when they could put, like, a young guy on there, a potential star for them, and then monetize that.”
Whatever the case may be, Weidman’s mindset has changed even from summer 2023, when he made his return to competition after more than two years away to rehab the injury suffered while throwing a leg kick at Uriah Hall — nearly identical to the manner in which Weidman checked an Anderson Silva kick that fractured the legendary Brazilian’s leg 11 years ago.
At that time, Weidman (16-7, 10 finishes) shared with The Post that he still harbored hopes of a championship run nearly a decade after losing the title.
That is no longer the foremost driving force when it comes to his athletic career.
“I would love to get back to the championship fight, but it’s more I’m taking a fight at a time now,” says Weidman, a native of Baldwin who moved to South Carolina since the COVID-19 pandemic. “I just want to see if I can perform under the lights and do what I love doing in the gym, and see how the body holds up and see where a great win takes me. But if I’m not able to perform the way I want to perform anymore, then I’ll probably be done.”
Saturday will “probably not” be his swan song, although he noted he is “not thinking about that” entering his matchup against veteran Eryk Anders (16-8, 10 finishes), a former starting linebacker for 2009 BCS national champion Alabama.
Getting a win would be extra sweet for Weidman given the venue.
The native New Yorker was a major presence during the UFC’s lobbying push to bring professional MMA back to the Empire State in 2016, but he is 0-2 competing at the Garden.
“Both meant a lot for me to win,” Weidman recalls with a wry laugh. “I was winning both fights going into that third round, got hit with a monster shot, and that was it; my night was over. It was awful. But I just see [Saturday] as an opportunity to, you can either run from it and be afraid of it or take it on and use it as motivation to get your redemption, so that’s where I’m at.”