If you thought Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira looked somewhat less than his best at UFC 153 against Dave Herman, you weren’t imagining things. Nogueira has revealed to Tatame.com that he suffered a broken rib in training three weeks before the bout.
Nogueira took the fight on short notice as it was and only had one week of training before hurting his rib.
Nogueira spoke to Sensei Sport TV (translation by Google):
“Fractured my rib three weeks ago on my right side. I went to the doctor, I took a local anesthetic to be able to train and when he (Dave Herman) gave me a shot there, gave me a shortness of breath and took a swung from one side to the other to see what had happened, had broken. There was a big break, but got scared when the kick hit him.”
Nogueira survived the scare to come back and submit Herman with an arm bar in the second round.
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