Demetrious Johnson was finally dethroned as the UFC’s long-time flyweight champion at UFC 227 by Henry Cejudo and to add to his woes he’s been left with several injuries that will prevent him from making a swift return to the Octagon.
“There’s no broken bones, but there’s still a little swelling,” Johnson said on ‘Ariel Helwani’s MMA show’. “I got the MRI results. I have a high-grade partial tear in my LCL. Right now, I’m suffering from pain in my lower calf area … I can’t even sleep at night. I’m waking up, just sweating in bed. I saw the UFC Performance Institute doctor, the physio therapist, and I have a possible tear in my Achilles into my calf, that’s not for certain. I need to see how high the grade is for the tears.”
“I don’t think I should [require surgery] but it all depends on the severity of the tear. Because when I get MRIs, it says hybrid partial tear on the LCL. So is that grade one, grade two, or grade three? Typically, grade three, you need surgery; grade two is six weeks off and rehab. It’s feeling like a grade two because I’ve had a tear in my left LCL before. In the fight, when it happened, I felt the pop go and the first thing that went through my head was, ‘Oh, that’s fantastic, there goes the right LCL.’”
Johnson is hoping for an immediate rematch with Cejudo next, but the new champion is pushing for a superfight with bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw instead.
