UFC 261, The Morning After: The MMA Gods smite Chris Weidman vs. Uriah Hall

There is no reasonable explanation for Chris Weidman vs. Uriah Hall 2.

Weidman opened the fight with a long distance kick, aiming at the calf. Hall checked the strike, and Weidman’s shin snapped in half (watch it if you dare), even more brutally than in his own infamous win opposite Anderson Silva.

It does not at all make any sense. In thousands and thousands of UFC fights, this situation has only happened twice previously. Weidman has now been on both the giving and receiving side of perhaps the sport’s gnarliest injury. The odds on that happening are astronomical.

What makes it especially rough is that it didn’t appear to be a particularly devastating check. Hall turned out his shin out and kept his foot on the mat, the proper way to defend a calf kick. However, that results in a shin-on-shin check. Hall has the benefit in that it’s his upper shin vs. Weidman’s lower shin, but still, it’s not the collision would one expect to cause this type of fracture.

That’s actually a real benefit of the calf kick — there’s really no way to accidentally hit the knee! Yet, a calf kick somehow sent Weidman’s foot flopping in the wind, and a curse from the MMA Gods themselves is really the only reasonable explanation.

Upon first appearance, one would assume that only Weidman was somehow cursed or smited. After all, his suffering was obvious and undeniable. The former champion fought so hard to return to the win column last time out, and that came to an unreasonably brutal end in just 17 seconds. The irony is impossible to ignore given his history with “The Spider,” especially since Hall was once promised as “the next” Silva.

It reads like a punishment in Ancient Greek mythology or some kind of deal with the devil. Weidman’s situation requires no explanation as to how he has been cursed.

It may not be as obvious upon reading the result, but Hall is a victim here, too. You only have to look at his crestfallen face as Weidman crumbled to the mat to understand why. His countenance very clearly read, “No, please not again.” Despite his own great ability to create massive moments of violence, Hall has never enjoyed the skill, though it’s one other fighters would kill for.

This is the man who apologized to Adam Cella’s unconscious body moments after spin kicking his skull into the bleachers. Hall is sympathetic to the men he destroys, uncomfortable with the consequences of his martial arts journey. After all, Hall turned to martial arts as a youth for a wholesome reason, hoping to avoid being bullied. Yet here he is, years later, having broken another human being.

Hall’s emotional agony may not have been as severe as Weidman’s physical anguish, but it was equally real. The biblical levels of irony exist for “Prime Time” too, who did not walk away from the cage joyous over his big win. I do not know what sin either of these men committed to deserve their punishments from The MMA Gods, but it must have been grave.

There was one more casualty in this lightning strike: us. From those among the first massive live audience in ages to the ne-er-do-wells illegally streaming the pay-per-view (PPV) on their cellphones, everyone who witnessed Weidman’s foot attempt to expel itself from his body is worse off for it.

Absolutely gruesome.

For complete UFC 261: “Usman vs. Masvidal 2” results and play-by-play, click HERE!