BROKEN FIBULA FOR PITBULL
Patricio “Pitbull” Freire had every right to call for an end to last night’s lightweight fight with Benson Henderson early in the second round, and he has photo evidence to prove it.
Last night on Spike TV, Freire motioned to the referee to stop the fight during the second round somewhat suddenly; Henderson was awarded the win via TKO. It turns out Freire broke his leg during an exchange in the first round of last night’s main event.
“Pitbull” posted a photo of an x-ray showing what appears to be a broken fibula to his Instagram page with the caption: “Unfortunately I injured my leg in the first round. I was still able to fight for half of the second but I felt the bone move. I was doing really well, confident, and winning the fight. I’ll be back soon.”
Freire also told MMAJunkie that he broke his shin in the first round when Henderson checked a kick from Freire with his knee.
There is currently no timetable for his return, although a broken fibula would typically take six weeks to heal.
Hiscoe’s Analysis: This wasn’t the gruesome, potentially career-ending leg break that Anderson Silva’s was, but it happened in a nearly identical fashion. Injuries like these are going to happen from time to time, but if this starts to be a more regular thing, fighters may become less likely to throw as many leg kicks as hard as they have been as the risk may not be worth the potential reward. Conor McGregor just last week hurt his foot after throwing a bevy of leg kicks at Nate Diaz and was forced to alter his game plan and fortunately didn’t injure himself more seriously.
As for Henderson, he didn’t come out of this fight with the momentum he must have been hoping for. His gamble in jumping to Bellator has been a bit of a flop so far with a disappointing loss followed by an anti-climactic and unimpressive win. Nonetheless, Henderson is getting a title shot, but he hasn’t shown much inside the Bellator cage to convince me that he’s a lock to beat Michael Chandler when they meet in November.
SATURDAY NOTEBOOK ITEMS…
-Be sure to follow MMATorch’s live coverage of tonight’s UFC on Fox from Vancouver, B.C. right here.
-Dana White continues to be skeptical of the possibility of Georges St-Pierre returning, telling ESPN SportsCenter that he’ll believe it when he sees it, but also added that GSP returning would be “awesome.”
-Paige VanZant was open to the posibility of participating in some form for WWE. “That’d be something I’d love to eventually venture into,” she told John Pollock on The MMA Report. “I’ve always been a big fan of the WWE.”
-Bellator sent out a press release last night confirming the signing of Rory MacDonald. “I already feel respected by the promotion as a professional athlete,” Rory said in a prepared statement regarding the signing.
(MMATorch is introducing a Daily News Digest where with one click each day you can get the top story of the day with added analysis, plus smaller tidbits in the News Notes section. Michael Hiscoe is a new MMATorch live events reporter and editorial columnist. He has written reviews for movie websites such as DVDTown.com and MovieMet.com in the past. He has been an avid follower of MMA for over 10 years and now provides his experienced writing and perspective on live MMA events for MMATorch.)
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