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Former UFC heavyweight champion, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, recently underwent surgery to repair an injured hip, as he was forced to withdraw from his rematch with Frank Mir at UFC 119. In an interview with SanDiegoMMA, Nogueira spoke openly about his injury, and how he plans to move forward. “This is an injury I have had for about 4 years. For the past 2 years it has been bothering me a lot. I have been training for all the last fights I had, and it was very painful. My last 3 fights were very painful,” Nogueira revealed. “To tell you the truth, when I was training in 2005, I felt it a little bit in my hip but it wasn’t that much. 2006 it hurt me. When I trained for the Couture fight it hurt me so bad, then this year it was impossible for training. After Anderson Silva’s fight when he fought Chael [Sonnen], I was there in the group and from there I had training the next day and I couldn’t walk, so I went to Colorado [to see a doctor]. My physical trainer told me [the doctor in Colorado] was the best hip doctor in the world, Dr. Philippon.”
After examining the UFC & Pride veteran, Dr. Philippon told Nogueira "you can’t fight. You are 40% on your performance". In order to get back to a healthy state, and be ready to fight, "Minotauro" opted for surgery, as he explained “I had arthroscopy in my hip, just to clean it up. I had some extra bone, a piece of bone, inside the joint so they just cleaned it up. They tried to fix the cartilage inside the hip to put everything in place"
Even with the surgery not being overly complex, Nogueira explained what he felt was the toughest part of the whole process “The hardest part is that I got to be out about 6 weeks on crutches.”
Undeterred by critics, who deem his best days behind him, he understands some of the doubt, as he knows his performances were not at his best level “I got slow. I couldn’t shoot anymore. You see my fights, normally I go to the ground, but I couldn’t shoot cause my hip was f—ed up“
Nogueira is hoping to get on the UFC's Brazil card in Rio, but before he can do that, he will need to have one more surgery on his other hip “It is in both sides. I did one, I still have to do another one. Another surgery. End of January. The doctor told me you should do one then wait about 2 months, then do the other side.”
Will we see a new and improved Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira upon his return? With the UFC's Brazil event scheduled for this summer, he certainly seems very motivated to get to form as quickly as possible “That’s my goal. I even want to fight before that, but to fight in Brazil - that would be awesome. That’s my goal. That is why I tried to do both surgeries close together,”
But what about an opponent? Nogueira made no secret as to the opponent he had in mind “If they give me Brock I would be ready to fight him.”
