Esther Lin
Plagued by injuries over the last couple of years, Garbrandt is hoping for an injury free 2020.
Following a whirlwind 2016 that saw Cody Garbrandt fight four times and win the UFC bantamweight title, “No Love” has spent the last three years struggling to stay healthy. He only made it into the cage once a year in 2017, 2018, and 2019, with all three fights ending in KO or TKO. Any hope he had to turn 2019 around ended with a ‘torn tendon’ in August.
But now Garbrandt sees the light at the end of the tunnel. In an interview with MMA Fighting during his manager’s Dominance MMA media day, the former 135 pound champ gave a timeline for his return and explained how hyped he was for the year to come.
”You guys will see me soon, very soon,” Garbrandt said. “Almost cleared from my injuries, I tore another tendon, that’s two tendons since last March. So hopefully by March or before if my body and mind are feeling up to it. I’m excited to get back in, I cannot wait, I miss it.”
”You really don’t get to understand, love, and respect something until it’s gone,” he continued. “And it’s been temporarily gone for me from injuries. Losses I can deal with, but injuries … it takes a little bit. The healing process and being healthy are two different things. For me to be healthy in 2020, I’m excited for that year and what it brings. The challenges and the adversaries that I have. The road back to the top.”
For now he’ll just have to take satisfaction from his various pastimes, which apparently include breeding pitbulls (morally questionable but pretty adorable from what we can tell from the above video) and of course getting tattoos.
In another interview with TMZ, Garbrandt described the 25 hours he spent on the table getting a massive back tattoo done. Further complicating the ordeal was a stem cell injection treatment he’d had on his spine just before his tattoo artist called him up.
“When he went over the stem cell injection, where they injected from, and man … woo!” he said. “That made your asshole pucker up a little bit!”