Chris Weidman ready to take care of business vs. Jacare Souza at UFC 230

Chris Weidman grew up on Long Island and dreamed of playing for the New York Islanders. Putting on the blue, orange and white wasn’t just some vague notion, though.

In 2008, after he failed to make the U.S. Olympic wrestling team, Weidman decided he was going to try out for his favorite team. He was broke with no income, but he purchased hockey equipment intent on giving it a shot.

He soon realized that hockey wasn’t for him, and made the shrewd decision to pursue a career in mixed martial arts.

He went on to end the legendary UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva to win the belt and had a series of significant wins.

No victory meant more to him, though, than a win on July 22, 2017, in Long Island over Kelvin Gastelum. The fight meant a great deal to him for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it ended a three-fight losing streak and put at least a temporary end to the nagging question, “What happened?”

He had lost the title to Luke Rockhold at UFC 194 in Las Vegas, then was stopped by Yoel Romero at UFC 205 and Gegard Mousasi at UFC 210. For a guy who had opened his career by going 13-0 with nine finishes, it was tough to have to answer that question repeatedly.

“I’ll be honest with you, sometimes you ask yourself how many times you’re going to have to answer the same question,” said Weidman, who on Saturday will meet Jacare Souza in the co-main event of UFC 230 at Madison Square Garden with the expectation he’ll get a title shot with a win. “The Rockhold thing is almost three years now, but I still have to talk about that. Getting that win [over Gastelum] at least helped to change that somewhat.”

Weidman was supposed to be fighting Rockhold again at UFC 230, until Rockhold pulled out with a series of injuries. The change didn’t mean much to Weidman, who said that avenging the first defeat would have been nice to do but wasn’t his focus.

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Both Souza and Rockhold are highly regarded, and he believes with a win, coupled with his victory in his last outing over Gastelum, he’d be back in the title picture. Middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and Gastelum coached against each other on “The Ultimate Fighter,” and are going to fight next year.

“I was told it was between me and Kelvin for this [upcoming bout with Whittaker] and they decided to give it to Kelvin, which is fine,” Weidman said. “Well, I wasn’t fine with it at first, but it’s all good. They told me that after this fight, I should be ready to go as a replacement in case someone gets injured between Whittaker and Gastelum. If nothing happens and they fight, then I’ll be fighting the winner.”

For the last year, Chris Weidman has hosted a periodic segment on MSG Network called “Weidman’s World.” He spends a day with other elite athletes from different sports and competes with them, trying to get an inkling of what their job is like.

He went on the ice with the Islanders following a recent practice and talked to one of the players about fighting in hockey.

Getting a chance to pick the brains of other successful athletes has helped open his eyes to ways to prepare himself.

The one thing all high-level athletes possess is incredible self-confidence. Egos in the fight game are fragile and can be broken with one well-placed punch, but Weidman’s past struggles haven’t beaten him down.

It’s why he was so placid about the change from Rockhold to Souza.

“At the end of the day, the truth of the matter is, if you believe you’re the best in the world, and I do, then you have to be ready for any of these guys in your weight class,” Weidman said. “I’m pretty well-rounded and squared away about everything to the point where a last-minute opponent change won’t really affect me too badly.

“This one won’t make a difference. The big difference is that one is longer and taller and a southpaw and the other is shorter but maybe more explosive. They’re both dangerous and they have similarities. They’re both good on the ground. They’re both good on the feet, though Luke might be a little more technical on the feet and Jacare throws probably harder. But at the end of the day, it’s another guy I’ll be competing against who has two hands, two feet and is looking to take me out. I know what I have to do and I believe I’m ready to go out and take care of business.”