UFC welterweight Vicente Luque has revealed why he thinks more fighters are suffering gruesome leg breaks inside the Octagon.
Luque’s comments come after a clear increase in the occurrence of the injury during fights in recent months. In the first pay-per-view to be held in front of fans in over a year, former UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman suffered a horrific broken leg after an early kick was checked by Uriah Hall. Most recently at UFC 264, Irish superstar Conor McGregor experienced a similar injury towards the end of the first round of his trilogy fight against Dustin Poirier.
Coupled with the grimace-worthy arm injuries suffered by Jacare Souza and Jamahal Hill at the two PPV’s in-between, the return of sold-out crowds appears to have brought with it an injury curse.
But Luque, who is the #6-ranked welterweight, doesn’t believe the recent injuries are an example of freak accidents. While speaking with John Hyon Ko for Sportskeeda, “The Silent Assassin” suggested the growing quality of MMA is to blame for the increase in high-profile leg breaks.
“I think that part of it is the level of MMA is increasing, and that means we need to train more, we need to push even harder in training, and that stresses the body.”
The 29-year-old added that the need for a higher training intensity has played a massive part in increasing the stress on fighters’ bodies and, in particular, the legs.
“These kind of breaks on the tibia bone, is a break that many times happens because of stressing too much, you know, running, and the moving a lot in the Octagon. And for all these kind of training, we’re always standing on our legs, so that’s the bone that’s gonna be really stressed from overtraining. And sometimes it happens, you know, the bone just can’t take that much abuse,” said Luque.
“I think because of the level that we’re at nowadays with MMA, training has become something really important. If you want to be competitive, you’ve got to push hard, you’ve got to train more than your opponent, and eventually, unfortunately, these kind of things happen.”
Given the plethora of PPV injuries that we’ve witnessed ever since Weidman’s shocking break at UFC 261, fighters would be forgiven for holding some extra worry when entering the Octagon. But Luque revealed the preventive measures he’s been taking for years to avoid a serious injury.
“Something I’ve been doing, I don’t know, for at least five years, or even more than that, is I’m always in physical therapy. So, it doesn’t matter if I’m injured or not, I do physical therapy as a prevention…they make sure that my body is alive, that I have, you know, no major injuries. And if any little thing starts bothering me, they’ll treat it right away, so it doesn’t become an injury and I can keep training strong and have a great training camp.”
Vicente Luque returns to action at UFC 265 on August 7. The American-born Brazilian will look to leap one step closer to a title shot with a victory over #5-ranked Michael Chiesa inside Houston’s Toyota Center.
Joining the clash of welterweight contenders on the main card will be an important bout in the context of the bantamweight division between compatriots José Aldo and Pedro Munhoz. Closing the card will be a blockbuster heavyweight fight for interim gold between Ciryl Gane and Derrick Lewis.
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