Daniel Cormier has been forced to withdraw from arguably the biggest fight of his UFC career, all because of a checked kick in training.
The UFC light heavyweight champion explained on the MMA Hour that he sustained the injury that ruled him out of UFC 197’s main event two weeks before he officially withdrew. Cormier was sparring when one of his training partners checked a kick, which he believes caused most of the damage.
“Two Fridays ago, I was in practice sparring and I kicked one of my partners with an inside low-kicked. He checked it and I fell down. I was like, ‘ow, that was painful’.
“I got up and started trying to spar again and another guy did like a little front kick to my shin and when he did it, I fell on the ground again and I was like, ‘Ok, this hurts a little bit more than normal, so I should probably stop sparring’. I went and stopped sparring.”
Rumours first started circulating that Cormier may be out of UFC 197, when he was spotted limping at a wrestling tournament. He explained that he felt compelled to attend to coach his team and figured if anyone asked him about his leg, he could say it was just bruised. However, once the swelling worsened, he feared the worst.
“There was a lot of swelling but I imagined that by Monday it would probably get better. Monday, it hadn’t got better so I thought, ‘what if I broke my leg? What if I chipped the bone? I should probably get an x-ray’.
“So I went and got an x-ray and there was obviously no break. Then the doctor said, ‘We need to take an MRI because you may have some bleeding’. When I took the MRI, they found out I had torn a ligament in my leg. I don’t know how to say the word, but it’s the ligament that connects the two bones in my leg. It makes them kind of work together.
“I took the rest of the week to see what I could do. I tried to spar, really had no lateral movement. I couldn’t run, couldn’t wrestle, couldn’t grapple, couldn’t kick and so it was just not looking good.”
Cormier claims that once he informed them that he was hurt, they pulled him from the card.
“When I told them I was going to see through the weekend they told me, ‘Daniel, you’re hurt. Doctor said it’s going to be five to six weeks, so even if you sat on your ass until the fight, you’d still need at least two weeks to start feeling better.’
“They’re like, ‘DC, you’ve worked very hard to get where you are today. You are the champion. You don’t have to go out and fight hurt and we can’t put you in a situation where you’re fighting under those circumstances.’ So they essentially made the decision for me.”
Number six-ranked light heavyweight Ovince Saint Preux was named as DC’s replacement for UFC 197’s headliner. He will slug it out with Jon Jones for the interim strap.
