Werdum: I didn’t say what they say I said
Fabricio Werdum: “When I said the first time in an interview, I said ‘I’ll fight against Cain Velasquez but not against Miocic,’ this is not true.”
UFC heavyweight champion FabricioWerdum appeared recently on The MMA Hour, and detailed the circumstances behind pulling out from a fight with StipeMiocic, scheduled for UFC 196 on Feb. 6. The show was eventually scrapped.
Werdum described a injury he suffered before UFC 188, where he defeated Cain Velasquez.
“All the time I have a small injury or a bigger injury,” said Werdum as transcribed by Hunter A. Homistek for MMAFighting.com. “The last one versus Cain Velasquez, I had a big injury in my head, in my balance, I had it. The last one. I didn’t spar for 40 days. Nobody knows this…[I almost] canceled the fight because I had a big injury in my head. Yes, concussion, in my ear and my head. I didn’t spar for 40 days…I just sparred one week before the fight. This is OK.”
It was a back injury that took him out of the latest fight.
“I [had] an injury in my foot this time,” he began. “I say, ‘No problem. It’s OK. I won’t kick the right leg. It’s OK.’ But, [then] last Friday, I had a big injury in my back. It’s like an old injury, you know?”
“For a long time I haven’t had a problem with this because my back is more strong, but I’m feeling very bad, you know? This is Friday. I tried to train again Monday because I rested Saturday and Sunday, I rest, just massage it and recover. … I trained, but I’m not feeling good, man. … When I have the injury in my back, my body’s not 100 percent. I’m feeling 70 percent, and then my mind goes down too. … I don’t have this balance. This is very important when everything’s 100 percent, because at this level, you have one thing go wrong, it’s done. This level is very high-level.”
Werdum was widely quoted as saying he was willing to fight Cain while injured, but was not willing to fight Miocic. But, he explained that it was a reference to two separate injuries.
“When I said the first time in an interview, I said ‘I’ll fight against Cain Velasquez but not against Miocic,'” he explained. “This is not true. I just said, when I had an injury in my foot, I said this. But when I have an injury in my back, [I’m not in a] condition to fight [anybody] this time. Not just my body, but my mind goes down, too.
“It’s not a new injury. This is an old one, because I have a problem in my vertebrae. I have a problem there. But I [haven ’t had] a problem with this for a long time because my back’s more strong now. But I’m feeling very bad now, because all the time I’m having a problem with my right side [of my] vertebrae. It’s the right side all the time, but this time it’s the left side. My muscle goes very tight. I’m like an old man. When I stop training, I try to stand up, it’s so hard to breathe.”
“He [the doctor] said ‘no’ [I don’t need surgery now] but maybe if it happens two more times, maybe, I’ll have a big problem, maybe surgery. He said that.”
“I never canceled one fight in my history. Never. Eighteen years, man. Never in my life. But it’s good because I learned a lot from everything.
“I saw the fans go with you when you’re on the top, and when you’re bad on one decision, the guys say a lot of things. I just want to say for these guys that say a lot of bad things: Just look yourself. How’s your life? Is your life OK? Do you not have a good job? Are you happy? I don’t understand these guys. It’s crazy.”
“Hey, man, I don’t know if Cain Velasquez has time to come back…he has surgery today, I think today. I think maybe one or two months to recover so he can start to train again. It’d be so hard to fight against Cain Velasquez for the next one.
“Maybe Miocic is waiting, you know? He’s there. And Ben [Rothwell]…I don’t know, man. It’s not my decision. It’s the UFC’s decision…I’m just waiting. I don’t want to promote the guys, man. I don’t like it.”
In the mean time, Werdum, 38, is waiting to be cleared by UFC doctors to return to training.