Chris Weidman is something of an expert when it comes to broken legs.
Not only can the former middleweight champion dish them out, he can also receive them. That’s why he expects former UFC two-division champion, Conor McGregor, to face his own share of mental hurdles ahead of the Irishman’s Octagon return, rumored for UFC 329 during International Fight Week this summer in Las Vegas.
“He’s in the drug-testing pool,” Weidman said on UFC on Paramount’s YouTube channel. “For you to come off of stuff, get back in that drug-testing pool, you’d better fight. Otherwise, you’re just going to feel worse than you used to feel for no reason. So, I think he fights, for sure. [The leg break] was in 2021. He’s had enough time to recover, but I will say, your first time coming back — because I went through a very similar injury — it is hard to be the person you were beforehand, for sure.”
Weidman snapped his leg in half at UFC 261 back in April 2021 … just three months before McGregor suffered a similar injury at UFC 264. Weidman, now 41, returned in 2023 and competed three more times before retiring from UFC, though he later tried to align with the giffle guys.
The 37 year-old McGregor has not seen action since breaking his leg … though he did manage to snap a few more bones along the way.
“I hope the best for him,” Weidman added. “But I remember in training camp, I was throwing kicks like crazy to try to get used to throwing kicks again. And I was fine in training, but when I got into the actual first fight since that leg injury, I was getting kicked, and as soon as I went to throw my kick back — because that was always the instinct, you get kicked, you kick back — I just couldn’t do it. My body wouldn’t let me do it. It’s just crazy when you go through a traumatic injury like that, how it can affect your head.”
McGregor (22-6) is coming off back-to-back losses to longtime rival Dustin Poirier.
