While Cain Velasquez was scheduled to defend his heavyweight title against Fabricio Werdum on November 15, reinjuring his knee during his training camp forced the UFC to replace him with Mark Hunt.
We now know that while Velasquez had successful knee surgery, the injury was more serious than anyone expected.
Velasquez’s head coach appeared on yesterday’s edition of The MMA Hour to offer an update on his fighter’s condition.
“Originally he had a slight tear in the meniscus, but he was fine,” Vasquez said. “He was training. He was doing everything necessary for the fight, everything was fine. The fight was going to go on. He was having great sparring sessions.
“And then he was working on sprawling drills, and it was a little slippery. As he went to sprawl he kind of went one way and his body went another way, and next thing I know I hear a yelp and I thought, oh crap. So, the combination of the MCL and the slight tear in the meniscus that was just kind of a little much.”
Velasquez’s surgery took place a few days ago to repair his MCL. While operating, doctors discovered the injury was more extensive than originally feared.
“The surgery went well, but there was more damage than anticipated, which didn’t make sense to me because he’s so freaking tough,” he told Ariel Helwani. “If Cain says ‘oww’ it must be a lot worse than he’s making it out to be, because that guy can take pain like I’ve never seen. So when it turned out that his MCL was worse, they put two anchors on it, it turns out he’ll be out a little longer than anticipated.”
As for a timetable for how long Velasquez will be out, Mendez didn’t offer a definitive answer, but that the doctors were doing everything in their power to help accelerate the recovery. If things go according to plan, a springtime date in 2015 wouldn’t be out of the question.
“[Velasquez]’s on crutches right now,” he said. “Two weeks on crutches, and then he’ll be on the knee brace for I believe six weeks. So, if you count all that, you can’t figure out the numbers.”
