During the course of the pandemic a number of UFC fighters have tested positive for Covid-19, but while the vast majority have quickly recovered, it seems that former bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt may be suffering from what is often referred to as ‘Long Covid’.
“Disclaimer from my last post, I was positive for COVID Aug 29th,” Garbrandt wrote on Instagram. “Since then I have been battling vertigo, tore my vein in my bicep which resulted in finding out I have blood clots, pneumonia and mental fog, these are the symptoms I’ve had and been dealing with and this is the reason I pulled out of the fight. I haven’t done any media, but I’d like to address it on my own terms.”
If Garbrandt had been fit it would have been he who would have fought Deiveson Figueiredo on Saturday night at UFC 255 rather than Alex Perez, and it seems that ‘No Love’ wasn’t impressed by his replacements performance.
“That was a lamb being brought in to a slaughter to build up that Golem mfer and let me heal from covid,” Garbrandt wrote on Twitter. “It’s just business.”
The injury-prone Garbrandt has only managed to fight once in 2020, but it was an impressive performance, knocking out Raphael Assuncao back in June.
That ended a disappointing three-fight losing streak that had seen Garbrandt suffer back-to-back TKO losses to TJ Dillashaw, followed by a KO defeat against Pedro Munhoz.
Garbrandt now hopes he’ll be back to full fitness by March, although based on other reports of Covid-19’s so called ‘long-haulers’, there are no guarantees about how long it can take to recover.
