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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
When UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre steps back into the Octagon at UFC 154 in his home town of Montreal, Quebec, Canada this November, it will have been 567 days since his last fight. After a knee injury took him out of last October's UFC 137 event, he suffered an even more serious tear to his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) on December 7 which took him out of UFC 143, and kept him out of action for all of 2012 thus far.
There's a very real concern that he simply won't be the same fighter he was before the injury; not just because of the lengthy layoff, but a very serious knee injury and surgery doesn't necessarily bode well for his first fight back. Then again, St-Pierre is an incredible athlete, a competitor whose body may recover much faster than the average person, and there's now evidence to suggest he could very well pick up right where he left off.
That evidence is in the form of Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson, who suffered a similarly damaging - if not more severe - knee injury last December. It came on a similar timeline to St-Pierre's injury, and yet Peterson returned to form this past weekend in week one of the 2012-2013 NFL season.
Peterson went down on Christmas Eve, 2011, when Washington Redskins safety DeJon Gomes hit him from the side just below the knee. The prognosis was dire, as he had torn both his ACL and his medial collateral ligament (MCL). It's the type of injury that could have kept a normal man out of commission for more than a year, but Peterson vowed to be back in time to play in the first game of the new season.
That seemed impossible given the nature of the injury, and the normal timetable for recovery, but Peterson would not be deterred. As he rehabbed through the offseason, he continued striving for a week one start, but even as it appeared to be a possibility, no one expected him to return like he did on Sunday. Just 260 days after the injury, Peterson looked as if he hadn't missed a beat, racking up 17 carries for 84 yards, an average of 4.9 yards per carry, along with two touchdowns against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
This wasn't simply getting him involved in opportunistic spots in the game, either, as Peterson was instrumental in setting the Vikings up in overtime for what was ultimately the game-winning score. A 20-yard run capped off an amazing return to form, which came much faster than anyone outside of Peterson anticipated, and it should give hope to St-Pierre fans as to what he may be able to do come Nov. 17.
St-Pierre is, like Peterson, not your average athlete. He's been considered one of the most well-conditioned athletes the sport has ever seen, and if anyone could duplicate Peterson's amazing recovery, it's the UFC Welterweight Champion. And he's not returning nearly as soon.
GSP's injury took place while training in December, with the news coming to light on Dec. 7. He went under the knife on Dec. 13 to repair his torn ACL, and has been attempting to rehab and recover since then. From injury to fight time, it will have been 346 days for St-Pierre, 86 more days between injury and return than Peterson. That extra three months can only be beneficial for the Champion; ring rust remains a possible detriment to his game, especially considering he hasn't been in the cage since last April, but there is still reason to be positive.
Though Peterson and St-Pierre compete in two very different sports and need the use of their joints for very different attributes in their respective games, the fact that both are elite physical specimens puts them in a similar category. Because of that, what Peterson was able to accomplish on Sunday afternoon should provide some optimism to St-Pierre fans worried about just how well he'll be able to perform come November 17.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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