Filed under: UFC
As anyone who’s ever gone out to dinner with Mike Swick can tell you, watching the UFC welterweight order is an ordeal unto itself. He can’t have garlic, or any of the great stuff that makes spicy food spicy. He can’t have many of the staples of the American restaurant industry, in fact, and it’s not just when he’s cutting weight.
Because of an esophageal issue that he’s struggled with for the past four years, even minor interactions like ordering at a restaurant have become exhausting.
“I know every time I have to order food somewhere, it’s going to be a problem,” Swick told MMA Fighting this week. “When the waitress comes up to ask for my order, I know ahead of time it’s going to be an issue. I have to explain that I can’t have garlic, can’t have spice, go through this whole spiel every time, and then there’s about a 50% chance that I’ll just be ignored and it will be in there anyway. Then I’ll be up for four hours feeling like I’m having a heart attack.”
It’s a problem that’s affected his social life and his fighting career, but now he’s hoping that he may be on the verge of a solution.