The UFC broadcast team has got jokes.
UFC 318 goes down this weekend from New Orleans, Louisiana, a pay-per-view card built for local, legendary lightweight Dustin Poirier as he enters his retirement fight against BMF Champion Max Holloway.
Before the fights kick off on Saturday, the UFC had its usual morning weigh-in show on Friday with former champions Daniel Cormier and Chris Weidman.
It was on the show where Weidman announced his UFC retirement earlier this year, revealing days later he had signed to fight in a new promotion, Global Fighters League (GFL), which was said to pay ex-UFC stars high purses.
Unfortunately, things wouldn’t work out for the GFL or any of its fighters as the promotion cancelled back-to-back events in May after their main investor withdrew.
Months removed from the GFL fiasco, the still-retired Weidman caught a stray while on the UFC 318 weigh-in show.
UFC broadcast team pulls GFL prank on Chris Weidman
On Friday, the UFC broadcast team put up a picture of Weidman with his arms around the GFL logo, making a meme out of Astronomer CEO Andy Byron recently being caught cheating on his wife during a Coldplay concert.
The UFC weigh-in show erupted in laughter at seeing Weidman’s face cropped on the CEO’s.
“What is GFL?” Weidman joked.
“You would’ve been a billionaire if GFL fulfilled your contract,” host Dan Hellie responded.
“The saddest part about that is you never got paid. People actually got paid by GFL, not Weidman,” Hellie said.
“I was still in the UFC when they were getting paid,” Weidman explained.
“You quit the UFC to go to the GFL,” Hellie replied.
“No, I didn’t quit the UFC. UFC was done with me,” Weidman admitted.
“When you went to the GFL, I was like thank God, I don’t have to deal with him on the show anymore and then you came back!” Daniel Cormier told Weidman.
“You thought they were going to cut me,” Weidman said.
“They kept me on [the weigh-in show] because they didn’t believe in the GFL. ‘Let’s make fun of him’,” Weidman said.
Chris Weidman announced his UFC retirement at 40
Weidman decided to hang up the UFC gloves after a loss.
Rather than making one more walk for a retirement fight like Dustin Poirier at UFC 318 this weekend, Weidman decided to take his chances elsewhere.
The former champion is 1-3 in his last four fights. His last fight was a second-round TKO defeat to Eryk Anders at UFC 310.
Weidman retired from the UFC in January before he turned 41. Weidman has since competed in a grappling match against Pat Downey.
In his prime, Weidman stopped all-time great and then-champion Anderson Silva in back-to-back title fights to become the UFC middleweight champion in 2013.