A bad tooth infection forced John Lineker out of his scheduled Bantamweight showdown against Jimmie Rivera at UFC 219, which was set to go down this Saturday night (Dec. 30, 2017) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“I noticed this when I came to Las Vegas earlier,” Lineker told MMA Fighting. “I didn’t know how bad it was a week ago. I started to feel the pain, but I thought it was something related to the root canal treatment I did three weeks ago. When I talked to a second doctor — the first one didn’t have an answer for the pain —, they found this infection.”
To hear John tell it, the Brazilian bomber fought through the pain in preparation for the final fight of the year, but realized taking a trip to the doctor’s office was the only option.
“I kept training hard despite the pain, but the pain kept getting worse a week before fight week. I decided to go to Vegas early so the UFC doctor could see how I was because I wanted to fight no matter what, but he saw that I wasn’t fit to fight and would have to do something about it.”
As a result of his withdrawal, there were brief talks about Marlon Moraes filling in on short notice, but according to “El Terror,” it was all a load of crap. Now, “Hands of Stone” is set to go under the knife to correct the issue, but opted to fly back home to Brazil to have the procedure done instead of in “Sin City.”
“I wasn’t in the mood of staying there,” Lineker said. “With the medication I’m taking, I can handle the pain. I want to come back as soon as possible.” he added. “My wife has taken care of everything already,” he said. “I will have the procedure as soon as I get there. I want to get better and get back to training and fighting as soon as possible.”
Lineker will be allowed to resume training 15 days after his surgery, which means he won’t be on the sidelines for too long and will be able to get back into the swing of things in the first part of 2018.
To see who will be fighting at UFC 219: “Holm vs Cyborg” click here.