R. Longo (left) guides C. Weidman (right) (Photo: Josh Hedges/UFC)
After winning the middleweight belt undefeated, with a historic victory over Anderson Silva, Chris Weidman He is in a bad phase in his career, coming off two consecutive defeats. To win again, this Saturday (8), at UFC 210, against Gegard Mousasi, the former champion's strategy must be more cautious. The guarantor is his main coach, Ray Longo, who admitted that his team “overvalued” the American, and that's why they drew up bolder plans in the athlete's last fights.
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“If you think about the whole situation, we only have one path to follow. But you can't keep going up forever. So maybe we overvalue it a little. I think this should be a mantra and I believe that we have to go back to doing what worked before and what brought us to the level we have reached”, commented Longo on the North American program The MMA Hour.
For Longo, the obligations of a champion outside the Octagon, along with Weidman's growing family, which has three children, may have hindered the former champion in his fights. The coach revealed that the former champion wanted to travel to help his teammates, such as Stephen Thompson e Gian Villante, who fought in Las Vegas and Brazil, respectively, but was “forced” to focus on his own training.
“I mean, life brings you a lot of things. You have a family, kids, a lot of opportunities outside of sports, all the work, but none of that makes him an angry or stressed guy. So, these guys have to manage things well to also be successful after leaving the scene. But, again, our mantra has to be to exclude everything around us and only focus on what we need to do inside the Octagon. He wanted to go to Brazil and stay in the corner of the Gian Villante, I wanted to help in the fight against Stephen Thompson, in Las Vegas, but he remained training and focused”, he declared.
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