Former middleweight champion Chris Weidman will have to wait a little longer to get back in the octagon.
On Friday, ESPN was first to report that Weidman had tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, his fight with Uriah Hall is off the UFC 258 card. That event is just over two weeks away, on February 13 in Las Vegas.
The plan currently is to move the fight to UFC 261, according to ESPN’s initial report. In something of an “out of left field” moment, Singapore has also been listed as a possible location for that event.
Thus far, only Florida (Jacksonville), Nevada (Las Vegas), and Abu Dhabi (Yas Island) have played host to UFC cards during the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, Singapore is home base for ONE Championship, which returned to live cards with limited numbers of fans in attendeance last October.
Chris Weidman (15-5) last competed in August, earning a three-round unanimous decision win against Omari Akhmedov. “The All-American” has struggled since losing his 185lb title to Luke Rockhold at UFC 194 in 2015, going just 2-5 since that time. A light heavyweight experiment in 2019 did not go well, with Weidman finished by future title challenger Dominick Reyes.
Uriah Hall (16-9) is arguably on the best streak of his UFC career, with three straight wins over Bevon Lewis, Antonio Carlos Junior, and Anderson Silva. “Prime Time” has two finishes in that stretch.
Weidman and Hall have met once previously. The pair met prior to their UFC careers, under the Ring of Combat banner in 2010. Weirdman won that fight via TKO.
