Yoel Romero defeated Luke Rockhhold in impressive fashion last night at UFC 221 in Australia, but the fight appeared to take its toll on him as an injured leg left him sitting on the canvas to conduct his post-fight interview and then having to be helped walk out of the Octagon afterwards.
Backstage it emerged that it was a shin injury that was hurting ‘The Soldier Of God,’ and it had left him fearing the worst.
“Yes, I think in the first round I took two kicks and I’m pretty sure that it broke my leg,” Romero revealed through a translator.
There certainly were some hard impacts during the early stages of the fight as Rockhold landed several hard low kicks that Romero appeared to check, though at the time it seemed as if Rockhold had come off second best as he was left bleeding from his shin.
Romero did a good job of disguising his own discomfort though, and thankfully for him, doctors now appear to have ruled out the possibility that he fractured his limb.
“With @YoelRomeroMMA in the hospital,” the fighter’s manager wrote on Twitter. “Leg is fine people couple weeks and he will be good to go.”
Romero didn’t win the interim middleweight title on the night due to having missed weight a day earlier, but given the strength of this performance he’s now put together a strong case for being given the chance to rematch current champion Robert Whittaker when they both return to full fitness.
