According to his manager, Stefan Struve is determined to fight in the UFC again despite his recent health issues.
UFC 175 earlier this month had been all set to mark the heavyweight’s triumphant return to the Octagon over a year after he had been diagnosed with a potential career-ending heart condition, but disaster struck on the night of the event when the ‘Skyscraper’ passed out backstage leading to the last minute cancellation of his fight.
At the time it was feared that Struve’s heart ailment had been the cause of his lapse of consciousness, but after a thorough check-up it was put down to the emotions of the night overcoming the 26 year-old fighter.
“He had essentially what boiled down to a panic attack,” explained his manager and newly announced COO of Titan FC, Lex McMahon on the MMA Hour show yesterday. “It manifested itself physically, he had a fainting episode backstage before his fight occurred. I don’t think he took full account of the emotions to step into the Octagon. I think he had some lingering questions about where health was even though he’d been cleared by specialist. All those things came together in a perfect storm and unfortunately it created a tremendous amount of anxiety, and it caused him to faint.”
Thankfully that means Struve can continue his fighting career if he chooses to do so, and despite clearly having to battle some inner demons he’s made it clear that he intends to do just that.
“I’ve spent a fair amount of time with Stefan since the canceled bout, and his response was 100 percent, he definitely wants to fight.'”
According to McMahon, White is fully supportive of Struve’s decision and the plan is to have him make his comeback “sooner rather than later”, though they will look to alleviate some of the stress of the situation by putting him on a last high-profile spot on an upcoming card, rather than one of the featured bouts on the biggest event of the year to date as was the case a couple of weeks ago.
