The lower leg injury which ultimately forced UFC light heavyweight championDaniel Cormier out of his UFC 197 title defense against Jon Jones wasn't one of those moments in which the injured party immediately knew something really bad just went down.
"I was in practice sparring," Cormier said on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour, "and I kicked one of my partners [with an] inside low kick and he checked it. And I fell down, and I was ‘ahh, that was painful,' and [trainer] Bob Cook was laughing. We get kick checked all the time. Sometimes you bruise your shin, and in a couple days it passes."
When the injury hadn't healed over the weekend, Cormier went to a doctor to get it checked out. And while he found out the leg wasn't broken, the prognosis made it clear his spot in the April 23 bout in Las Vegas was in jeopardy.
When Cormier and his camp contacted UFC execs Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White, to Cormier's surprise, the UFC braintrust urged him to sit out and let his injury heal.
"Something very surprising happened," Cormier said. "Jon and I will make a lot of money together, we make a lot of money for the UFC too. But when I told them I was going to see it through the weekend, those guys were, ‘Daniel you're hurt. Looking at your MRI, you need 5-6 weeks, so even if sat on your ass, for the next three weeks before they fight, you'd still need at least two weeks to start feeling better, and they're like, you know DC, you worked very hard to get to where you are today. You're the champion, you don't have to fight hurt. We can't put you in situation you're not healthy, we don't want you to fight in those circumstance. They made decision for me. I begged them, I was like give me until Monday, please."
LINK: Daniel Cormier details injury which forced him out of UFC 197 fight with Jon Jones