It was supposed to be one of the biggest fights in UFC history, the featherweight championship bout between Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor at UFC 189. But less than two weeks before the fight, Aldo pulled out with fractured rib, that he suffered during a training session, what resulted in a McGregor trash-talking frenzy. Chad Mendes jumped in on ten days notice to save the day, in what has now been scheduled as an interim-championship bout, but lost via second-round T.K.o. After the fight, McGregor stated, “there was a hell of a lot more wrong with me than a bruised rib”. On the latest episode of the MMA Hour, he got a little bit more into details:
“I was injured, I re-injured my leg,” said McGregor, who was sidelined by a torn ACL for almost a year, before he began his meteoric rise in 2014. “I couldn’t walk. I could not walk. There was a period in the camp where I couldn’t even stand up straight. Two weeks before the fight, that was when I was throwing kicks again.”
McGregor continued to explain that he hurt his knee in training during the unprecedented media world tour before UFC 189, and that the injury was why he flew his whole camp in from back home in Ireland to live with him in a luxurious manor outside of Las Vegas.
“The reason it all shaped up like that was because I went travelling the world tour and I got injured on the world tour, training with unfamiliar bodies in a competitive atmosphere,” he said. “This game breaks you down enough, you must find comfort with your training partners. It’s about making it to contest, keep you body fresh and you mind sharp.”
The fight between Aldo and McGregor has now been re-scheduled for December 12 at UFC 194, where both men are set to unify their belts.
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