Chris Weidman

Baldwin | 12 UFC fights

Every interview he does during fight week, every news conference and every media scrum, he’ll face the same set of questions. He knows it.

“These are the cards I was dealt,” former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman said. “I went out there to win these fights, I lost.”

Weidman, from Baldwin, will headline UFC’s first trip to his hometown on July 22 when he fights Kelvin Gastelum in Nassau Coliseum at UFC Long Island.

He’ll make his walk to the octagon inside the arena he grew up going to Islanders games at before it was renovated this past year. He’ll do so on a three-fight losing streak. He’ll do so having spent the previous week answering questions about how the once-undefeated and seemingly unstoppable champion could lose to Luke Rockhold, Yoel Romero and Gegard Mousasi.

“It’s something that I gotta move on from and focus on the future. I don’t let a loss or a setback define me,” Weidman said. “I’m not going to let that bother me. The greatest athletes of all time don’t. LeBron James, the Kobe Bryants, all these guys, they have bad games, they have bad weeks, they have bad months. But they find their way back.”

Weidman (13-3, 9-3 UFC) will attempt to do just that against Gastelum, a former “Ultimate Fighter” winner who will fight at middleweight after struggling several times to make the 171-pound limit for welterweight bouts. Gastelum (14-2, 8-2, 1 no contest) has won three fights in a row, the last of which — a first-round TKO of Vitor Belfort — was overturned to a no contest after Gastelum tested positive for marijuana metabolites.

There are things in Weidman’s head that he sees now that he could have done differently, be it in the fight or in camp or elsewhere that maybe would have made a difference. But that’s an alternate reality now. Yes, he threw that spinning back kick against Rockhold at UFC 194 in Las Vegas. Yes, he put his head on the wrong side when he shot in on Romero at UFC 205 at Madison Square Garden. Yes, there was mass confusion about whether Mousasi’s knee strikes were legal and how that whole controversial ending played out at UFC 210 in Buffalo.

“I put a lot of work into this sport, a lot of time,” Weidman said. “I’ve had some setbacks now and I’m very motivated to show my skill set. It looks as if I’m on the downswing of my career if you look at my record. You come watch me train, I’m getting better. It’s not like I’m in here getting my [expletive] kicked in sparring and I’m trying to mentally push myself to think I’m still good. I’m still doing my thing in every element of MMA.

“I just have to make it work on fight night.”

That fight night will occur 15 minutes from where he grew up. It will happen across the street from where he was a two-time All-American wrestler for Nassau Community College. It will take place across the other street from where he was a two-time All-American wrestler for Hofstra. It will unfold a three-minute drive from the gym he spent the past nine years of his life training in mixed martial arts, the gym he now co-owns with Ray Longo, his trainer for his entire career.

“This,” Weidman said, “is going to be one of these things I’ll be able to take with me for the rest of my life.”

CHRIS WEIDMAN’S UFC FIGHT HISTORY
Date	Event	Opponent	Result
March 3, 2011	UFC on Versus	Alessio Sakara	Won by unanimous decision
June 11, 2011	UFC 131	Jesse Bongfeldt	Won by submission, Round 1, 4:54
Nov. 19, 2011	UFC 139	Tom Lawlor	Won by submission, Round 1, 2:07
Jan. 28, 2012	UFC on Fox 2	Demian Maia	Won by unanimous decision
July 11, 2012	UFC on Fuel TV 4	Mark Munoz	Won by KO, Round 2, 1:37
July 6, 2013	UFC 162	Anderson Silva	Won by KO, Round 2, 1:18
Dec. 28, 2013	UFC 168	Anderson Silva	Won by TKO (injury), Round 2, 1:18
July 5, 2014	UFC 175	Lyoto Machida	Won by unanimous decision
May 23, 2015	UFC 187	Vitor Belfort	Won by TKO, Round 1, 2:53
Dec. 12, 2015	UFC 194	Luke Rockhold	Lost by TKO, Round 4, 3:12
Nov. 12, 2016	UFC 205	Yoel Romero	Lost by KO, Round 3, 0:24
April 8, 2017	UFC 210	Gegard Mousasi	Lost by TKO, Round 2, 3:13
July 22, 2017	UFC Long Island	Kelvin Gastelum

Photographers: Chris Ware, Raychel Brightman
Video editors: Greg Inserillo, Raychel Brightman