Dana White has confirmed that Carlos Ulberg underwent knee surgery following his ACL tear at UFC 327 and will recover at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas rather than returning home to New Zealand.
Speaking at the UFC Winnipeg post-fight press conference, White provided an update on the newly crowned light heavyweight champion and explained why keeping Ulberg in Vegas makes sense for his rehabilitation.
“One of the good things about it is, he was at Power Slap last night, and I was talking to him, and he’s gonna stay in Vegas,” White said. “He’s got the surgery, and he’s gonna start working at the PI.
Apparently, where he lives in Australia [New Zealand], he’s in a remote part of the country, so there isn’t much around him. What we would do before we built the Performance Institute is we would get these guys surgeries with great doctors, and then they’d go home, and they wouldn’t do anything. They didn’t do any physical therapy or recovery. Now with the PI, that place has saved more fights and helped more athletes prolong their careers. We’ll get him in there, and see how fast he starts to recover. We always figure it out.”
White was also asked whether the UFC has considered creating an interim light heavyweight title during Ulberg’s absence. His response was measured.
“We have not. I mean, Carlos is still getting set up here. But we’ll figure it out.”
Sports medicine physician Dr. Brian Sutterer previously projected Ulberg’s recovery timeline at 9 to 12 months based on slow-motion footage from the fight, with a return to competition potentially not until 2027. An official timeline has not been released.
