{"id":729580,"date":"2026-06-11T12:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/729580\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:05:16","slug":"chris-weidman-feels-he-couldve-been-mmas-goat-but-still-pleased-by-ufc-hall-of-fame-nod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/729580\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Weidman feels he could\u2019ve been MMA’s GOAT but still pleased by UFC Hall of Fame nod"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Weidman has achieved hall of fame distinctions for his amateur wrestling as well as MMA efforts but feels like he fell short of what he ultimately wanted. Touching upon his thoughts on hearing about his UFC Hall of Fame induction and the feelings tied to that induction which will transpire in July, Weidman said [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yeah. I was completely surprised. I had no idea. Nobody in my family knew, my coaches, my manager, nobody knew. So, there was no way that that secret was going to get back to me. They asked me and Dustin Poirier to go cage side so they could pan over to us and then promote the post-fight show. We\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, yeah, whatever.\u201d Then we were like talking to each other like, \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t they just do this from the desk? They could do that same shot from the desk.\u201d So thought it was a little weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hanging out talking to people and all of a sudden I heard my name in the arena and [Jon] Anik\u2019s voice and I\u2019m like why didn\u2019t they say; I think I just heard my name. I look over at Anik. He\u2019s like probably three feet from me and I heard Hall of Fame. I\u2019m like, \u201cOh my, it\u2019s happening. I\u2019m getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.\u201d It was really cool to be back in Jersey where my career started in professional mixed martial arts because MMA wasn\u2019t legal in New York for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll my fights prior to getting into UFC was in Jersey. So, I\u2019d be back there around all those fans very close to where I grew up in Long Island, New York. It was really cool to get honored like that. You never know like people would introduce me as future Hall of Famer and I\u2019m like I don\u2019t know. Don\u2019t jinx it, who knows, and it was never something in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always just trying to become a world champion and hold that belt as long as I could. So Hall of Fame was never something on my mind. So it\u2019s cool to go down in history and forever I will be considered a Hall of Famer which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

When responding to the perception that \u2018The All-American\u2019 seems more directionally motivated toward the next step and not resting on his laurels but also balancing the positive feelings regarding being acknowledged for the body of work he has put together, Weidman stated [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve never been the type of guy who sits back and focuses on what I\u2019ve accomplished. Because I\u2019m never happy, I\u2019m always very critical of myself more than anybody else. I always want to chase that next thing. But as I got older and as I retired from MMA, I could sit back a little bit more now and think, alright, I\u2019ve actually done some pretty cool things and I accomplished a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as I accomplished, I still of course wanted more. It was the same thing in the wrestling world. I accomplished a lot but I didn\u2019t accomplish what I wanted. So I guess you\u2019re just never satisfied, are you? [laughs]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Chris Weidman on the one component that kept him from achieving MMA GOAT status<\/p>\n

When asked what he wanted to accomplish within his mixed martial arts actualization process that he felt he fell short of achieving in the end, Weidman quipped [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I wanted to be; I think I had the potential of being the greatest of all time, you know? I wanted to beat the who\u2019s who of the sport. Honestly injuries just was such an issue for me. I gained my confidence from how hard I worked and when I started having injuries, I couldn\u2019t work as hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I wasn\u2019t as confident and dealing with just like doubt. So, it\u2019s not like I have any regrets. It\u2019s just, if my body was able to hold together, I feel like I would have been able to accomplish more. But I\u2019m still very grateful for everything I accomplished and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Weidman has achieved hall of fame distinctions for his amateur wrestling as well as MMA efforts but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,45188,786,785,85,787,5775],"class_list":["post-729580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chris-weidman","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-hall-of-fame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}