Chris Weidman demands immediate rematch after ‘dominating’ Gegard Mousasi at UFC 210

Top Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight Chris Weidman suffered his third straight defeat at UFC 210 a few weeks ago, losing to Gegard Mousasi via technical knockout (TKO) in Buffalo, New York.

The final result, however, was clouded in controversy due to the referee in charge changing his original call of illegal knees delivered by Gegard to legal, giving Mousasi the victory after Chris was deemed unfit to continue.

All with the aid of legal instant replay, according to New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC).

See it again here.

Naturally, “All American’s” team filed an appeal with NYSAC to try to overturn the call, though Chris says he doesn’t expect much positive to come out of it. During a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Weidman talked about the bizarre ending to the fight and the subsequent appeal.

“We sent in the appeal. It’s really on my managers, my trust is in them. They came up with something to send over, I looked it over, as did my wife. They sent it to New York and I think they might’ve got a reply. As for me and my hopes, to win an appeal in New York, especially it being so fresh, they are going to fight this thing to the death. At the end of the day, it doesn’t make a huge difference to me personally. I know what happened in there was chaos and not right and I was on the losing end of it. It sucks for a lot of reasons, but at the end of the day, I can’t control any of it and it’s over. I’ll just look to the future. Whether they make it a no contest or not, I’m not focused on it. I’ll let my management team deal with that and hopefully the right thing happens. I am not putting much time and effort into thinking about that. At the end of the day, it was a sucky situation that I was a part of and it wasn’t what I wanted to happen and I don’t think Mousasi wanted that to happen.”

As far as him trying to “play the game” or take advantage of the rules, Weidman says that’s far from the case, he was simply trying to follow the established rules, all while trying to get back to his feet.

That said, he says he could’ve continued on fighting despite taking two knees to the head and went on to dominate Gegard, which is why Chris wants a chance to run it back against Mousasi.

“I think I would’ve went on to dominate Mousasi and even finish him. Now, this is all my opinion and you can argue this back-and-forth and we will never know for that event. But, I do want a rematch because I felt I was dominating the fight. Even in the second round when he came forward and I was doing the backpedaling and he was punching. He didn’t land anything and I was very coherent and I wasn’t rocked. The rest of the round, I mounted him and took his back. I know Mousasi wasn’t happy with the result, judging by him pulling down his flag and telling his coaches to stop the celebration. I know his tune changed at the press conference and he was coached into the way he was talking at that point. But his instincts were right and as a fighter you don’t want to win that way. It was a debacle.”

As far as fighting in New York again, Weidman says he’s not sure what the future holds, as he feels NYSAC is still very new and “amateurish” when it comes to mixed marital arts (MMA).

He’s not wrong.

And despite his skid, the former 185-pound champion is still confident he will regain the division title before moving up to light heavyweight to win that belt, as well.

Who said you can’t have more than one comeback?