UFC president Dana White will not undergo ear surgery this month after all.
White, who has been battling Ménière’s disease this year, told MMAFighting.com on Tuesday that his surgery has been delayed until January 2013.
“My schedule and the doctor’s didn’t line up,” he said, via text message.
According to MayoClinic.com, Ménière’s disease “is a disorder of the inner ear that causes spontaneous episodes of vertigo — a sensation of a spinning motion — along with fluctuating hearing loss, ringing in the ear, and sometimes a feeling of fullness or pressure in your ear.”
White said he started to feel the effects of the disease at the end of last year, and it later forced him to miss his first UFC event in 11 years when the disease prevented him from flying to Fairfax, Va., for UFC on FUEL TV 3 in May.
The first surgery White was considering was rather invasive, would have forced him to re-learn how to walk, not to mention put his UFC duties on hold for several weeks, if not months. However, the 43-year-old White said at the UFC 153 post-fight press conference earlier this month that his new plan was to undergo an alternative surgery on his ear, which would not put him out of commission for any considerable stretch of time. That’s the surgery he is planning on having in January.
“This is a different procedure,” he said in Rio de Janeiro. “They’re going to try where they go in and cut the back of my ear open and they go in through there. They insert a tube, and it’s supposed to give me a 70 percent chance of not having an attack.”
White most recently suffered an attack in Toronto last month during UFC 152 fight week. He’s hoping the new year will signal the end of his sometimes crippling pain.
“I’m really excited to get this thing done and get my life back,” he said.