Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight titleholder, Chris Weidman, was thought to be the next 185-pound legend after disposing of former kingpin, Anderson Silva, in back-to-back title fights.

Follow-up victories over Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort seemed to support that claim, but then “All American” coughed up his crown to Luke Rockhold, before getting finished in subsequent losses to Yoel Romero and Gegard Mousasi.

Rockhold isn’t ready to write him off just yet.

“He’s an incredible fighter, man, he put away Kelvin Gastelum,” Rockhold told Submission Radio. “People want to discredit Weidman because he’s had a couple of rough fights since we encountered, but he showed up (in) his last fight. You’re only as good as your last fight, they say, and he showed up and put Kelvin Gastelum away like nobody else could. He’s very relevant in the division, he’s No. 3 in the world. And so going in and putting him away again obviously just speaks volumes.”

Watch how their first bout ended here.

Rockhold has seen his fair share of rough fights, the most recent of which ended in a violent knockout loss to the aforementioned Romero at UFC 221, the second time he’s been finished since taking out Weidman at UFC 194.

Weidman will get the chance to avenge his loss when he meets Rockhold at the upcoming UFC 230 pay-per-view (PPV) event, recently made official for Nov. 3, 2018 inside Madison Square Garden in New York City.

For much more on that pending showdown click here.