Tag: Injury

It Looks Like We Won’t Be Seeing Cain Velasquez in the Octagon Anytime Soon


(Get comfortable, champ. You’re gonna be there a while. Via Cain’s Instagram.)

Heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is kind of like Santa Claus, in that he only comes around once a year and delivers presents, if you will, in the form of vicious beatings for our entertainment. We haven’t seen Cain in the octagon since his October 2013 title defense over Junior Dos Santos in their trilogy match at UFC 166, but following a successful shoulder surgery in December, it was believed that Velasquez would back in action by late 2014.

Well kids, it looks like Christmas is cancelled this year, as other lingering injuries and a possible coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America may keep Velasquez sidelined until 2015. Yep, 2015. Said Ariel Helwani on last night’s edition of UFC Tonight:

I spoke to his wrestling coach and he told me that Cain’s doctor cleared him to use his right hand in training two weeks ago, but he’s not sure if Cain’s ready to use the left hand yet. He’s not sure if he’ll be ready by November. He said he won’t rush into the fight that’s targeted for then. He won’t fight until he’s 100 percent. There’s talk of Cain coaching The Ultimate Fighter Latin America, and the UFC has approached him about it, and they could film it in May in Las Vegas. It would be a likely scenario that he’d coach against Werdum now.

God. Damn. It.

So not only do we have to wait for Anthony Pettis to run the TUF gauntlet before we see him fight again, but now Velasquez is being put on the back burner? And to coach the international version of a notoriously cursed show as far as coaches go?

CagePotato Ban: Placing entire divisions on hold for a goddamn reality show. Or not stripping a champion of his/her belt after a year of inactivity. Either or.

–J. Jones


(Get comfortable, champ. You’re gonna be there a while. Via Cain’s Instagram.)

Heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is kind of like Santa Claus, in that he only comes around once a year and delivers presents, if you will, in the form of vicious beatings for our entertainment. We haven’t seen Cain in the octagon since his October 2013 title defense over Junior Dos Santos in their trilogy match at UFC 166, but following a successful shoulder surgery in December, it was believed that Velasquez would back in action by late 2014.

Well kids, it looks like Christmas is cancelled this year, as other lingering injuries and a possible coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America may keep Velasquez sidelined until 2015. Yep, 2015. Said Ariel Helwani on last night’s edition of UFC Tonight:

I spoke to his wrestling coach and he told me that Cain’s doctor cleared him to use his right hand in training two weeks ago, but he’s not sure if Cain’s ready to use the left hand yet. He’s not sure if he’ll be ready by November. He said he won’t rush into the fight that’s targeted for then. He won’t fight until he’s 100 percent. There’s talk of Cain coaching The Ultimate Fighter Latin America, and the UFC has approached him about it, and they could film it in May in Las Vegas. It would be a likely scenario that he’d coach against Werdum now.

God. Damn. It.

So not only do we have to wait for Anthony Pettis to run the TUF gauntlet before we see him fight again, but now Velasquez is being put on the back burner? And to coach the international version of a notoriously cursed show as far as coaches go?

CagePotato Ban: Placing entire divisions on hold for a goddamn reality show. Or not stripping a champion of his/her belt after a year of inactivity. Either or.

–J. Jones

Poll: Which Injury/Disease Will Inevitably Take Down Tito Ortiz *This* Time?


(“Sorry Bjorn, Von Willebrand disease.”)

Last week, Bellator middleweight champ Alexander Shlemenko called out Tito Ortiz via a stoic, multilingual Youtube video, even though he understood that “Tito Ortiz, different weight class.” Ortiz immediately accepted the fight via Instagram because he’s real good at accepting fights, and before we had time to stop and ask, “Wait, what the fuck?”, Bellator went and booked the fight for their May 17th pay-per-view. Bjorn Rebney’s line of reasoning was as follows:

Tito wants a fight. Shlemenko wants a fight. As a fan, I would love to see the fight. I think it’s got this incredible, kinda cool dynamic going where a small 85er who could conceptually make 70 is going to move up to 205 to fight one of the greatest fighters in the history of 205. 

I can’t even with that logic, so for now let’s just focus on the matchup at hand, and more specifically, how it will never actually happen on account of Ortiz pulling out with an injury or sickness in the coming weeks.

Tito Ortiz may be one of the greatest 205ers of all time, but he also has, as Rebney admitted, “a long and storied history of getting injured preparing for fights.” He was injured pretty much his entire UFC career, if you were to ask him, and it’s been the same for his Bellator career thus far. That being the case, we all might as well speculate as to the extent of the injury he will inevitably pull out of *this* fight with, right? It’s the Christian thing to do, so join us after the jump to vote in our poll.


(“Sorry Bjorn, Von Willebrand disease.”)

Last week, Bellator middleweight champ Alexander Shlemenko called out Tito Ortiz via a stoic, multilingual Youtube video, even though he understood that “Tito Ortiz, different weight class.” Ortiz immediately accepted the fight via Instagram because he’s real good at accepting fights, and before we had time to stop and ask, “Wait, what the fuck?”, Bellator went and booked the fight for their May 17th pay-per-view. Bjorn Rebney’s line of reasoning was as follows:

Tito wants a fight. Shlemenko wants a fight. As a fan, I would love to see the fight. I think it’s got this incredible, kinda cool dynamic going where a small 85er who could conceptually make 70 is going to move up to 205 to fight one of the greatest fighters in the history of 205. 

I can’t even with that logic, so for now let’s just focus on the matchup at hand, and more specifically, how it will never actually happen on account of Ortiz pulling out with an injury or sickness in the coming weeks.

Tito Ortiz may be one of the greatest 205ers of all time, but he also has, as Rebney admitted, “a long and storied history of getting injured preparing for fights.” He was injured pretty much his entire UFC career, if you were to ask him, and it’s been the same for his Bellator career thus far. That being the case, we all might as well speculate as to the extent of the injury he will inevitably pull out of *this* fight with, right? It’s the Christian thing to do, so join us after the jump to vote in our poll.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

In case you were wondering, Ben Askren thinks this whole thing is a work. Which, maybe?

-J. Jones

Surgery Roundup: Weidman and Hendricks Set Timetables for Return, Carlos Condit to Go Under the Knife Tomorrow


(“And for my next trick, I will pull a horseshoe out of Joe Rogan’s ass and beat him over the head with it!” Photo via Getty.)

I don’t mean to jinx things, but 2014 is rapidly approaching 2012 as the year of the injury curse. So far, 2014 has been the year that put the final nail in Dominick Cruz’s coffin, saw Anderson Silva do a full-on Corey Hill, and took out Cain Velasquez for the foreseeable future. Oh yes, and let us not forget that GSP vacated his title this year, and that we won’t be seeing Anthony Pettis in action until December 27th*. No, fuck you, 2014.

Even our newly-minted, young-gun champions, Chris Weidman and Johny Hendricks, have been bitten by the injury bug recently, going down with a knee injury and torn bicep/fractured shin, respectively. Honestly, it makes one consider whether fighting for tens of thousands of hundreds of dollars is really worth spending the majority of your prime years battling injuries that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix, but I digress.

Amidst all the black clouds currently hovering over the MMA landscape, however is a silver lining. Following successful bicep surgery, Hendricks has already set a timetable for his return, telling The MMA Hour that he is hoping for a 4 to 8 week rehabilitation period before he can resume training. For some gruesome before and after photos of Hendricks’ shredded ligaments, plus updates on Weidman and Carlos Condit, join us after the jump.

(“And for my next trick, I will pull a horseshoe out of Joe Rogan’s ass and beat him over the head with it!” Photo via Getty.)

I don’t mean to jinx things, but 2014 is rapidly approaching 2012 as the year of the injury curse. So far, 2014 has been the year that put the final nail in Dominick Cruz’s coffin, saw Anderson Silva do a full-on Corey Hill, and took out Cain Velasquez for the foreseeable future. Oh yes, and let us not forget that GSP vacated his title this year, and that we won’t be seeing Anthony Pettis in action until December 27th*. No, fuck you, 2014.

Even our newly-minted, young-gun champions, Chris Weidman and Johny Hendricks, have been bitten by the injury bug recently, going down with a knee injury and torn bicep/fractured shin, respectively. Honestly, it makes one consider whether fighting for tens of thousands of hundreds of dollars is really worth spending the majority of your prime years battling injuries that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix, but I digress.

Amidst all the black clouds currently hovering over the MMA landscape, however is a silver lining. Following successful bicep surgery, Hendricks has already set a timetable for his return, telling The MMA Hour that he is hoping for a 4 to 8 week rehabilitation period before he can resume training.

Hendricks’ manager, Ted Ehrhardt, was also kind enough to post photos of Hendricks’ bicep tendon and ligament before and after surger-OH MY GOD.

Before:

After: 

Hey, at least some negligent doctor didn’t burn him with a surgical lighthead, amiright? *vomits*

In slightly more uplifting news, middleweight champ Chris Weidman is expected to undergo “minor” left knee surgery to repair the torn meniscus that forced him out of his UFC 173 fight with Lyoto Machida. This is according to Weidman’s coach, Ray Longo, who informed Fox Sports that Weidman will additionally have some repairs done on his right knee to remedy some lingering issues there. Considering Weidman’s last return from surgery resulted in the greatest upset of all time, Machida might as well start readying himself for a drop to welterweight. Dude will be a monster. 

“Chris really needs to be healthy for this fight,” said Longo to FOX Sports. “Whatever he was doing outside of the knee was looking good. His weight was phenomenal. He just needs to address this now. It’s something he can’t risk happening in a fight.”

Speaking of which, Carlos Condit is set to go under the knife tomorrow night to repair the torn meniscus and ACL he suffered in his fight with Tyron Woodley at UFC 171. His return date is still up in the air, although if we are to use the recovery timetable of Conor McGregor as a barometer, we could see Condit back in action by early 2015. So hooray for that.

*Of course, being that Pettis has landed a TUF coaching gig, that date will be pushed back to May of 2015 at the minimum after he inevitably injures himself again.

–J. Jones

Chris Weidman Injury Update: Surgery on Both Knees Possible

Chris Weidman had what some consider to be the best year in MMA history in 2013 by taking out one of the greatest fighters of all time, Anderson Silva, not once but twice. But it looks like he might have trouble repeating that feat in 2014. Fans were aware that Weidman was out for his scheduled […]

Chris Weidman had what some consider to be the best year in MMA history in 2013 by taking out one of the greatest fighters of all time, Anderson Silva, not once but twice. But it looks like he might have trouble repeating that feat in 2014. Fans were aware that Weidman was out for his scheduled […]

Related Posts:

Carlos Condit Injury Update: Torn ACL, Partially Torn Meniscus

Former UFC interim welterweight champion Carlos Condit suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament and a partially torn meniscus during his Saturday UFC 171 loss in Dallas to Tyron Woodley. Condit’s manager Malki Kawa confirmed the news with Bleacher Report on Wednesday. Kawa also noted that no timetable is currently available for Condit’s return. On Sunday, […]

Former UFC interim welterweight champion Carlos Condit suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament and a partially torn meniscus during his Saturday UFC 171 loss in Dallas to Tyron Woodley. Condit’s manager Malki Kawa confirmed the news with Bleacher Report on Wednesday. Kawa also noted that no timetable is currently available for Condit’s return. On Sunday, […]

Related Posts:

Johny Hendricks Injury: Updates on UFC Star’s Bicep and Recovery

Johny Hendricks is riding a wave of momentum after beating Robbie Lawler at UFC 171 on Saturday, but an injury will leave him on the shelf for the immediate future.    According to Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, Hendricks has been diagnosed with a torn bicep, which will require surgery: The ailment will reportedly keep him out […]

Johny Hendricks is riding a wave of momentum after beating Robbie Lawler at UFC 171 on Saturday, but an injury will leave him on the shelf for the immediate future.    According to Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, Hendricks has been diagnosed with a torn bicep, which will require surgery: The ailment will reportedly keep him out […]

Related Posts: