UFC: Zhang Weili says Chris Weidman’s broken leg distracted her before Rose Namajunas loss
- Former strawweight champ admits she ‘wasn’t as focused’ after seeing horrific injury right before her fight at UFC 261
- ‘I touched gloves with him when he left for the fight and said good luck … you can’t lose focus for even 0.01 seconds, it’s that cruel,’ Zhang says
Former UFC strawweight champion Zhang Weili has claimed she lost focus for her title fight against Rose Namajunas after seeing Chris Weidman break his leg.
“The fighter in my previous fight, who was in the same waiting room as me [Weidman], his leg was snapped,” Zhang said in the recent documentary My Bronze Age, which aired on Chinese streaming platform Tencent QQ.
“I even touched gloves with him when he left for the fight, and I said ‘good luck’. I saw his leg snapped like that … I felt like my mind wasn’t completely focused on the match.
“I wasn’t as focused. You can’t lose focus for even 0.01 seconds. No, no. It’s that cruel.”
“Magnum” Zhang suffered a shock first-round TKO at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, after a head kick from 29-year-old Lithuanian-American Namajunas knocked her down to the canvas.
“I was always afraid of losing when I kept winning, very afraid,” Zhang added. “The more you win, the more you are afraid. Like, ‘what if I lose … ?’
“After losing the fight I started to reflect back. It feels different all of a sudden. This time I feel like perhaps what I’ve learned is more than what I would learn from a win. Right now I feel great. I think my mental strength is way stronger than before.”
Zhang said she has removed all “distractions” in her life – including her long hair, which she had kept for 10 years – as she looks to start the climb back to the top.
“I put myself in the position to prepare for my next fight, where it’s like my first fight in Kunlun Fight,” she said. “Back to my initial determination and starting it over again.
“Last year I become really busy all of a sudden [after winning the belt]. I felt like I wasn’t able to be as concentrated on one thing as before. People recognised me when I was walking on the street. Those old grandpas in the park also recognised me.”
Zhang said her head coach Cai Xuejun questioned her for taking so many interviews and commercial opportunities, with her face plastered over magazine covers and adverts.
“Cai always told me not to be distracted and I was a bit sad, because I think I already tried my best,” she said. “He just said, ‘Do you think you can fight and win like this? Do you think you can be a champion like this?’
“And I thought, ‘Is there anything wrong?’ Now I think about it, really, I can’t be like that. I really have to focus.
“After this fight went wrong and we all looked back to realise we were too fast. We didn’t pause to reflect, rewind and review. We didn’t have the time. We kept going forward.”
