UFC lightweight contender T.J. Grant is a man with a broken heart right now because his title shot at UFC 164 went up in smoke on Friday when he was pulled from his upcoming bout against Benson Henderson due to injury.
While the UFC moved quick to replace Grant with former WEC champion Anthony Pettis, it didn’t cushion the blow at all for the Canadian fighter who had won five fights in a row to earn the title shot in August.
Grant updated his condition via Facebook and Twitter on late Friday night, revealing that he suffered a concussion in training while doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
“I suffered a concussion in training and it’s taking a little longer than I expected to heal,” Grant stated on his Facebook page. “I am making improvements everyday and should be back to training soon I hope. Thanks everyone for your concern, I’ll be back 100% and will be looking to get my hands on whoever has the gold.”
He updated further when speaking to fans on Twitter.
Grant also shot down the conspiracy theories that were floating around that the UFC somehow paid him to step aside to allow Pettis to fight Henderson in a rematch of their epic fight back in 2010.
The unfortunate side of all this is Grant now has to sit by the wayside while Pettis faces Henderson in the new main event of UFC 164.
Grant earned the shot at the belt when he viciously knocked out former title contender Gray Maynard at UFC 160 back in May.
Grant’s concussion must be fairly severe given the timeline for his fight that was scheduled on August 31 against Henderson. With the fight still six weeks away, Grant’s diagnosis will obviously force him out of training for quite some time.
NHL All-Star Sidney Crosby played only eight games in a span of 14 months after receiving a serious concussion during a game in 2011, however, concussion based injuries and the symptoms that go along with them are different with every athlete.
Based on his messages on the two social networks, Grant is hopeful to still get a title shot upon his return. If he can get healthy in quick enough time, he could still be in line to get the winner of the upcoming fight.
Of course that’s also assuming the winner of the title fight at UFC 164 comes out unscathed and can return in quick enough time to face Grant either later this year or early in 2014.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report
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