UFC 129 medical suspensions: GSP, Hominick, Couture, Brilz out 60 days
Seven fighters – including main-card competitors Georges St-Pierre, Mark Hominick, Randy Couture and Jason Brilz – received 60-day medical suspensions…
Seven fighters – including main-card competitors Georges St-Pierre, Mark Hominick, Randy Couture and Jason Brilz – received 60-day medical suspensions following Saturday’s UFC 129 event.
All fighters from the April 30 card received suspensions of at least 14 days.
Georges St-Pierre: Suspended 60 days due to eye injury and must have ophthalmologist’s clearance before returning
Jake Shields: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Jose Aldo: Suspended 30 days due to lacerations
Mark Hominick: Suspended 60 days for precautionary reasons and must have a new CT scan completed
Lyoto Machida: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Randy Couture: Suspended 60 days due to KO and must have a new CT scan completed
Vladimir Matyushenko: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Jason Brilz: Suspended 60 days due to KO and must have a new CT scan completed
Ben Henderson: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Mark Bocek: Suspended 30 days due to head laceration
Rory MacDonald: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Nate Diaz: Suspended 45 days due to left-eye laceration
Jake Ellenberger: Suspended 45 days and must have X-ray due to possible hand injury
Sean Pierson: : Suspended 60 days due to KO and must have a new CT scan completed
Claude Patrick: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Daniel Roberts: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Ivan Menjivar: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Charlie Valencia: Suspended 60 days due to KO and must have a new CT scan completed
Jason MacDonald: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Ryan Jensen: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
John Makdessi: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Kyle Watson: Suspended 60 days due to left-eye laceration and KO and must have a new CT scan completed
Pablo Garza: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
Yves Jabouin: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
A piece in bloodyelbow discusses the phenomena of fighters ignoring suspension in the gym.
While Jason MacDonald won in the first round with a triangle choke, he still went through some punishment in training and took at least one slam during the fight ending choke. The point of the 14 day precautionary suspension is simply to allow the fighter’s body (and brain) a couple weeks to recover. Yet today MacDonald tweeted that he was “Back home and back to the gym!”
At UFC 120 Dan Hardy lost in devastating fashion to Carlos Condit, and was wisely suspended 30 days, with no contact for 21 days . However, in a later interview he said “The Monday morning after the Condit fight I was back in the gym. I was annoyed that I let myself and my fans down … I wasn’t quite sure how the medical suspension works. If someone tells me I can’t punch for 30 days, I’m not going to listen to them.”
It is a failure of a fighter’s camp if they are allowing their fighters to risk their health, as well as their licensing status to rush back into the gym. Fighters and trainers need to just accept the suspensions, serve them and then get back to the grind.