(Nogueira takes ice baths to quell hip pain and to treat his hypergonadism.)
Many fans of Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira were disappointed by the spotty showing of former PRIDE star when he made the transition to the UFC. Some hypothesized that he was slower as a result of the accumulative damage the scores of punches and kicks his head has absorbed over the years, while others assumed he had lost a step due to age.
According to Nogueira, who by the way is only 34, the reason he hasn’t performed to the potential he demonstrated in Japan is that he has been secretly battling a pair of nagging injuries for the past four years.
“This is an injury I have had for about four years. For the past two years it has been bothering me a lot. I have been training for all the last fights I had, and it was very painful. My last 3 fights were very painful. To tell you the truth, when I was training in 2005, I felt it a little bit in my hip but it wasn’t that much. 2006 it hurt me. When I trained for the Couture fight it hurt me so bad, then this year it was impossible for training," Nogueira explained during a recent interview with SanDiegoMMA.net. "After Anderson Silva’s fight when he fought Chael [Sonnen], I was there in the group and from there I had training the next day and I couldn’t walk, so I went to Colorado [to see a doctor]. My physical trainer told me [the doctor in Colorado] was the best hip doctor in the world, Dr. Philippon. He took a look at me and said ‘you can’t fight. You are 40% on your performance.’”