Rockhold (photo) will play with an injured knee. Photo: Brandon Magnus/UFC
It is quite common for MMA fighters themselves to say that they never fight “100%” and always have some type of injury when they step into the octagon. It's rare that they open up about these injuries before the fight. And that's exactly what the middleweight champion did Luke Rockhold. On the eve of UFC 199, Rockhold revealed that he had been dealing with a knee problem throughout his preparation and that he will fight against Michael Bisping bruised.
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“I injured my Medial Collateral Ligament in my knee), I’m not going to lie, I didn’t use my knee the whole camp. I only started ground training last week, but I'm not giving up on fighting. I overcome my injuries. I don't care about the circumstances. I tore my MCL. I only started kicking last week,” said Luke, at the event’s official press conference.
After the statement, the champion was provoked by Bisping, who argued that he would lose the athletes' health insurance for announcing that he would enter the octagon injured. The challenger's jab, however, did not go unanswered. “I don’t care about insurance. I don't need health insurance to destroy you. I don't need my knee. I don't even need to walk, if I crawl I can beat you. Try fighting on the ground with me and you'll see. I trained boxing this whole camp and that's all I needed. You will come up and fall on your face”, he said.
After winning the middleweight belt in December last year, with a technical knockout over Chris Weidman, Luke Rockhold will make his first title defense next Saturday (4). The Californian would face Weidman again at UFC 199, but the former champion was injured and now the challenger will be the Brit Michael Bisping.
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