With multiple eye-pokes influencing a decidedly controversial win, coach Ray Longo has weighed in on Chris Weidman’s UFC Atlantic City victory.
Veteran MMA coach Ray Longo is as loyal to his athletes as they come and after a night of sheer ‘weirdness’ in Atlantic City, topped by Chris Weidman’s victory over Bruno Silva, the head of the Serra-Longo fight team has now shared his view on the controversial eye-poke stoppage.
Chris Weidman awarded controversial decision at UFC Atlantic City
Heading into the ‘people’s main event’ on Saturday evening, Chris Weidman had only fought once since a horror leg break in 2021, yet the 39-year-old turned back the clock in a big way to score a dramatic TKO finish-turned-technical-decision in Atlantic City.
After suffering multiple eye-pokes already in the contest, a double foul in the third round followed by a short hook caused Silva to drop to the ground in agony – only for the referee to call off the fight as a TKO win for Weidman.
Yet as Bruce Buffer was exiting the octagon, it was revealed that the result had been overturned to a technical decision in favor of the American, given that he was up on the scorecards by the finishing sequence.
Coach Ray Longo weighs in on Weidman’s UFC Atlantic City finish-turned-decision
Speaking on the latest episode of the Anik and Florian podcast, coach Ray Longo unsurprisingly refused to condemn Weidman for the manner in which the fight ended, instead sharing his admiration for his pupil’s performance up until that point:
“I don’t give a s*** that’s my real gut feeling, I’m happy with what I saw, he’s a winner no matter how they scored that fight – that’s it you know, if you want to know how I think they should have scored it, I didn’t even think about it.”
“Regardless of how it’s scored, we all agree that we saw a different guy than we’ve seen in a while,” said coach Longo, before adding that the same reactions shared for Silva should be levied in support of his student too:
“Weidman got thumbed in the eye [too], there’s a picture of it and because he didn’t complain about it, everybody’s acting like he’s the [bad] guy – you know they both eye-poked each other [but] one guy chose to handle it one way and one guy chose to handle it another way…It’s an unfortunate thing in MMA.”
Regarding the eye-pokes themselves, Longo sensibly chose to distance himself from the whole situation: “I’m sure Weidman didn’t do it on purpose but no matter how they scored that fight, as a coach, I’m just happy to see the way he fought.”
“I don’t care if they DQ, I don’t care what it was, to me it’s a win either way and eye pokes aside, that guy proves something to himself and to a lot of people at 39-years-old after a horrific injury like that.”
Coach Longo open to rematch, doubts if the UFC is interested
With many fans and pundits alike expecting either an official appeal, immediate rematch, or both, Longo shared that whilst a second fight against Silva would be welcomed by Chris Weidman, he’s unsure if the UFC is as interested:
“Hey, listen, if it’s up to me do [it], f*** it, do the rematch – 100% I don’t think the UFC would do that, but I do, do the rematch.”
In typical Longo style, the veteran coach then teased that a rematch would still end in Weidman getting his hand raised: “You want to do a rematch, I think it’ll be way worse this time, I really do even at this at 39 going to be 40 years old I say do it – if that’s what you wanted, if that’s what rectifies it – 100%.”
With the victory at UFC Atlantic City, Weidman moves to 16-7 as a professional.