Daukaus took some serious damage in the first stoppage loss of his professional career.
Kyle Daukaus is recovering after undergoing surgery for several facial fractures in his loss to Roman Dolidze.
The UFC middleweight was finished with a knee and follow-up punches from Dolidze in the first round of their fight on the preliminary portion of UFC Austin this past June. It turns out the knee did a ton of significant damage to Daukaus, who was one of six fighters to receive an indefinite medical suspension from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) after the event. The reason was not given, but the Contender Series alum has revealed why he received such a lengthy suspension.
Daukaus recently shared an update on his face and explained it was fractured in three areas.
“I just wanted to come on, kind of give everybody an update as to what’s going on with my face and stuff and why it’s so swollen and everything,” said Daukaus in a video on Instagram. “During the fight I got kneed, obviously. As soon as the knee landed, it kind of broke my face in kind of three places. The scans I got, I had two orbital fractures, and I think I had a fracture in my eye socket as well underneath. I went to the doctor’s obviously immediately after the fight. I was there kind of all night, came home probably around 11 o’clock. I could’ve stayed in Austin and had this surgery the following week, but kind of just wanted to go home and be where I’m comfortable at.
“Flew home, went down to Jefferson Hospital and got everything taken care of,” continued Daukaus. “Got one of the best doctors to kind of fix my face and everything like that, so yeah. Surgery went well. It was last Thursday. I got three plates put in, unfortunately, in my face. I got three plates on my like actually face and then I have one underneath my eyeball, too. But the one underneath my eyeball isn’t really a plate. It kind of just like molds to my bone, so it’ll kind of eventually just become one as opposed to the ones that are screwed in my face and my cheekbone.”
Daukaus also shared his timeline for recovery. Though shorter than initially expected, the ‘D’Arce Knight’ said he would not rush into fighting soon.
“Things like this happen,” said Daukaus. “My face is swollen. I have about six to eight weeks of recovery the doctor had said, which is something that’s far quicker than I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to be out at least a year, but yeah. Looking on the bright side of it, it’s six to eight weeks until pretty much full contact, so it’s something that’s exciting in a way. But again, I’m in no rush to kind of get back in there and get to hard training or anything like that.”
Daukaus has alternated between wins and losses since joining the UFC over two years ago. The 29-year-old earned his most recent win over Jamie Pickett with a first-round D’Arce choke at UFC Vegas 48 in February.