Luke Rockhold may have completed a career defining performance on Saturday evening with his second round stoppage of Lyoto Machida at UFC on FOX 15, but it was not without its obstacles several weeks before the fight.
While the majority of fighters suffer all sorts of injuries during their training sessions, Rockhold got his on his day off while surfing.
“You see that bald spot?” Rockhold asked Ariel Helwani during a post fight interview. “I’m not getting old. I took one day off. It was three weeks before the fight. I just wanted to get some surfing in. The first wave, I do a turn, roll over, and just come back and smacked my head on the reef.”
Given that Rockhold has been surfing those same waves for the majority of his life, he could not understand how he made that rookie mistake.
“Two out of the last four surf sessions that I had at this place, I cracked my head. I’ve been surfing there my whole life and I’ve never hit my head.”
So with less than two weeks until fight time, Rockhold opted to shave the portion of his head that was cut, superglue it back together, and resume regular training – business as usual.
“I couldn’t stitch this one up so I had to actually shave it and glue it because that was the only way to train for the last week of training camp, so I superglued my head. We did surgery on it, shaved it and that’s why there’s a bald spot.”
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