Nick Ring’s Ultimate Fighter 11 Blog: Episode Seven

Knee Injury

I was boxing with Seth in training and my knee blew out when I pushed off of it. This is not the first time I have blown my knee and at that moment I had a feeling I may have done it again –- my leg was not stable anymore after that training session.

I have been struggling to get my MMA career back on track since August 2006, due to my first knee injury which I sustained in a wrestling practice. The first one seemed like it would be pretty uncomplicated and I would be back to fighting within 9 months. I did 9 months of rehab and during a training session I tore my 2nd ACL and had to go back under the knife.

This time, however, it was not to replace the ACL, it was to do a bone graft (taking bone from my hip and jamming it in my femur). I had to get this surgery to allow them to do a follow up surgery to replace my ACL again.

Unfortunately after getting that surgery I had to wait a minimum of 6 months. Due to scheduling problems with the surgeon, it worked out to be 9 months of waiting around for the ACL surgery with another 9 month recovery and rehab. I am not the kind of guy who likes to wait around and it truly pissed me off to watch all of my fighter friends get all these well-paying and big fight opportunities while I am stuck on the bench barely being able to pay my bills.

The worst part about this experience was after my 3rd knee surgery, my knee surgeon said that the surgery didn’t take and I would not be able to fight anymore and that I would need to retire. He even tried consoling me saying that I might be able to teach martial arts classes but my life as a competitor was effectively over.

I was pretty upset at the time because I had put a lot of time and energy into martial arts and it looked like I would get no recognition for the work I had put in. For me to get this far it had taken me many, many hours a day for several years. I am not the most physically gifted athlete to walk the planet, so I had to put some serious time and work into it to get the results I have gotten. At this point in time it looked like I would not be able to make a living as a fighter now. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do now because I didn’t really know anything else.

My surgeon said that he doubted that I would be able to fight on my leg in the state that it was in but after thinking about it for a few days I just thought “who cares what he thinks, I love to fight and if I rip my knee again I rip my knee again – I will just go till it rips again.”

And all this brings me here now, as I am in the Ultimate Fighter house and I am not sure what I have done yet but it looked like my surgeon may have been right about the knee. It simply wasn’t going to hold up.

Weigh-in

Henle looking really cut-up in the weigh in (OWWWW – hubba hubba). You would never even suspect that he used to be overweight most of his life. He told me that as a child he was always the “fat kid.” I think it’s cool to see a person take action and lose the weight.

I think it says a lot of good things about your character to be able to buckle down and do what you need to for your health, and I think that anyone who is overweight can attest to how hard it is to get rid of the pounds.

Seth Versus Joe

This fight was pretty back and forth and there was a lot of good grappling techniques executed (yeah, I know you want to boo. Fucking hit him!) I thought that Henle looked good in this fight. He showed a lot of dominance in the grappling positions and went for a lot of stuff.

I gave the first round to Seth (but only barely), I gave the second round to Henle (but Seth was completely dominant in the last 30 seconds and looked like he might finish Henle with the rear choke), and I gave round 3 to Seth.

Good fight, guys.

Wild Card: Kyacey Uscola versus Kris McCray

McKinney is out because of his injured shoulder, Hammortree is out because of his injured back and that leaves only Kyacey, who got disqualified in his match against Rich. He takes on McCray, who lost his match to Bryant. Kyacey is a very experienced veteran who is fearless to take any fight and McCray is one of the most physically strong guys I have ever had the pleasure to grapple with (once he gets a hold of you he can pretty much do what he wants.)

Dana also brought Court back into the competition to take Rich Attonito’s spot. Honestly, I had mixed feelings about this situation. In one way I was happy for Court because he is a good person and I admire his dedication to becoming the best he can be. But…he is also on the other team and he is really tough. I felt like I had to take a lot of abuse to put him out of the tournament and it was all for nothing. Oh well –- back to the drawing board.