Chris Weidman Blames Guskov, Not Ankalaev, for UFC Abu Dhabi Stinker

The UFC Abu Dhabi main event Saturday was, by wide agreement, one of the worst fights of 2026. Magomed Ankalaev and Bogdan Guskov spent the better part of five rounds circling and swatting at air before Ankalaev finally hauled Guskov down and finished him with ground-and-pound in the fifth. Chris Weidman watched the same fight everyone else did — he just came away with a different verdict.

Speaking on Deep Waters, the former middleweight champ and UFC Hall of Famer argued Ankalaev deserves credit, not the pile-on he's been getting. His logic: Ankalaev stopped a genuinely dangerous man in Guskov, who came in at 18-4-1 with 15 knockouts and a #9 ranking at light heavyweight. You don't finish that guy by accident. Weidman said the pace problem sat squarely with Guskov, who he claims spent the night running rather than engaging.

Pacing or Passing the Buck

Weidman's read on the tape is that Ankalaev took the first two rounds to feel things out — reasonable in a 25-minute fight — then tried to push the action in the third once he realized Guskov wasn't going to trade. When Guskov kept backpedaling, Ankalaev shot a takedown, got it easily, and cashed out. It was the first time in a while anyone had seen Ankalaev wrestle, and Weidman thought that part looked sharp.

There's a whiff of exasperation in Weidman's take, too. He suggested the harsh reaction says more about expectations than performance: everyone knows Ankalaev is elite, so a grind-it-out finish reads as a letdown. Ankalaev himself seemed to sense the fight didn't win him any friends. He pinned the lack of action on Guskov's unwillingness to fight and floated Paulo Costa as a next opponent.

The Fight Weidman Actually Wants

Weidman had a better idea. Instead of Costa, he pitched Ankalaev against former champion Jiri Prochazka in what he framed as a true No. 1 contender bout — two men who've never fought and who, between them, are physically incapable of producing another snoozer. Prochazka is coming off a first-round knockout loss to new champ Carlos Ulberg, who now sits at 15-1 with 10 KOs and holds the belt Ankalaev is chasing.

It's a clean pitch. Ankalaev needs a statement fight to wash off the Abu Dhabi taste, and Prochazka's whole brand is chaos. Whether the UFC agrees is another matter — but on entertainment grounds alone, Weidman's booking beats another cautious main event.