Eye-poke controversy or not, Ray Long pleased with Chris Weidman

Ray Longo is proud of Chris Weidman regardless of the controversy surrounding his fight at UFC on ESPN 54.

Weidman’s win over Bruno Silva this past Saturday was initially ruled a third-round TKO before getting overturned to a unanimous decision. The finish was immediately called into question after a slow-motion replay showed Weidman poking Silva in both eyes before setting up the fight-ending sequence.

Longo admits he was worried about the outcome after Weidman (16-7 MMA, 12-7 UFC) committed repeated unintentional fouls, but he thought the former UFC middleweight champion was en route to winning anyway.

“You have to address it because you don’t want to see it end in a DQ (disqualification), but he got his eye poked, too,” longtime coach Longo said of Weidman on “Unlocking The Cage.” “I don’t want to get crazy with this. There’s a picture where he’s getting thumbed right in the eye. He chose not to even complain about it, which I’m not saying is right or wrong, but yeah, you have to be concerned because the last thing you wanted to do is see that become a problem. But you’ve got to remember, too: The first round was clean. He won that convincingly.

“The second round, I think there was a minor eye poke where they stopped, but he won that round, too. So, he was up in the fight. Either way, I think he won that fight even if they went to the scorecards, which is exactly what they did at the end. But no, you have to be concerned with that. It’s like a guy when he knees a guy, and he’s not grounded. You’ve got to be careful. You don’t want the fight to stop for that. The eye pokes are a little different, I think, for some reason. But yeah, I was definitely concerned.”

Prior to the unfortunate ending, Weidman was looking in much better form than he did in his return fight vs. Brad Tavares at UFC 292. He was kicking plenty with his repaired leg, and Longo sees that as a win itself.

Silva was understandably emotional at the way the fight played out, and Longo is open to the pair running things back.

“But either way, as a coach, even if it was a DQ, I’m happy with what I saw,” Longo continued. “For a guy that went through a horrific injury like he did to come back like that at 39 years old, going to be 40 in a couple of months, I thought it was fantastic. It’s a win either way for me, no matter what happened.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 54.