Chris Weidman Gets A Huge Finish In Atlantic City - But Was It Due To An Eye Poke?!
CHRIS WEIDMAN IS BACK!!!
I'm not gonna lie - as a huge Chris Weidman fan, I was a little worried about his chances tonight! We've seen him suffer brutal leg injuries in his last two fights, and Bruno Silva is no slouch; combine that with everyone online starting to question if it was time for Chris to call it quits and I'll admit I was anxious!
I shouldn't have been, though, because Weidman came to Atlantic City to FIGHT - and he put together the best performance we've seen outta him since at least 2020. Just take a look at this crazy exchange at the end of Round 2 for a taste of what it was like….
It was awesome. He was piecing Silva up on the feet, not afraid to throw leg kicks at all, and even mixed in some signature takedowns.
Unfortunately, though, this performance/finish has a bit of a dark cloud hanging over it due to Weidman poking Silva in the eyes not one, not two, not three, but FOUR times over the course of this fight….
The action was stopped the first two times it happened, and Silva was given time to recover while Weidman was given a stern warning - but upon replay, you could see that the "TKO finish" was actually a double eye poke that made Silva drop to the ground. I don't know why he'd drop like that (and Weidman even questioned the same post-fight) but he was clearly emotional afterwards and very upset things ended the way they did.
After it was initially ruled as a TKO victory for the "All American", it was overturned to a unanimous decision win for him. Since the finish happened in the final round, they basically just ruled the fight was over at that point and went to the judges' scorecards since you can't really call that a TKO - and of course, Chris was up on those cards.
Ultimately I'm glad they went this route instead of just ruling it a no contest, because Weidman was handily winning that fight and the crowd went INSANE for the finish - and I just didn't want that taken away from him altogether. Because he's still my boy.