(Somebody needs to make a vertical comic with these photos. Thank you in advance. / Images via Getty.)
Following his decision win over Robbie Lawler on Saturday night, new UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks revealed that he actually considered backing out of UFC 171 due to an apparent elbow injury that he sustained a week and a half before the fight. As it turns out, what he was feeling was actually a torn bicep, which was aggravated early in the match. (“Whenever I threw a hook it just spazzed out,” Hendricks said. “I don’t know what happened. I felt my arm actually pop.”)
Hendricks’s manager Ted Ehrhardt has confirmed to MMAFighting.com that Hendricks will undergo surgery on his right bicep this coming Monday to repair the damage. Assuming there are no complications, the champ will start rehab four weeks after that and will be able to start training again two months from now. Unfortunately, Hendricks also suffered a hairline fracture in his left shin during the first round of the fight, which “will require a lengthy recovery period,” according to the MMAFighting report.
Given the level of chaos in the welterweight contender pool right now, it’s probably for the best that Hendricks sit out for a few months and wait for his next challenger to rise to the top. Of course, that’s not an ideal situation for the UFC, since the promotion’s lightweight champion and heavyweight champion are already spending most of 2014 on the sidelines due to injuries, and Ronda Rousey‘s next opponent is still a question mark.
Let’s hope Hendricks can make it back by the end of the summer. The last thing we need is another absent welterweight champion.