ironworks
12-03-2014, 11:50 PM
Don't count on UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis breaking his leg in the Octagon any time soon.
A Taekwondo practitioner of 22 years, Pettis was asked Monday if seeing former middleweight champion Anderson Silva suffer the grisly injury would affect his fighting style.
"Not really," Pettis told New York City's HOT 97. "It was kind of an amateur mistake. He kicked a check and that's like a basic kickboxing move. I mean, he's probably done that a million times in his life and that was just the wrong time to do it. The wrong angle, the wrong pressure. But that doesn't really make me kick differently."
Silva broke his left tibia and fibula at UFC 168 in his rematch with current champion Chris Weidman and immediately underwent an operation to insert an intramedullary rod into the tibia.
"I think it looked ugly," said Pettis. "It was nasty but that's like saying in basketball when somebody twists or breaks their ankle, 'You can't dunk like that because he did it that way.' It's not even a factor."
On the mend himself, Pettis has been sidelined with a torn posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) since he took the title off Ben Henderson at UFC 164 in August of 2013.
Pettis reportedly suffered a partial tear in his left PCL against Henderson, tearing it completely eight weeks later at his first day back to full training.
"I checked a kick and just the wrong pressure, again," said Pettis. "He hit my knee in the right spot, tore my PCL. It's a common injury in what happens with car crashes when your knee hits the dashboard. The recovery wasn't bad. Simple surgery. Recovery went perfect. It was just the time off. No kicking for six months. I'd been kickboxing my whole life so I just had a year of finding out a lot about myself."
Pettis defends his lightweight title to Gilbert Melendez in the co-main event at UFC 181 Dec. 6 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A Taekwondo practitioner of 22 years, Pettis was asked Monday if seeing former middleweight champion Anderson Silva suffer the grisly injury would affect his fighting style.
"Not really," Pettis told New York City's HOT 97. "It was kind of an amateur mistake. He kicked a check and that's like a basic kickboxing move. I mean, he's probably done that a million times in his life and that was just the wrong time to do it. The wrong angle, the wrong pressure. But that doesn't really make me kick differently."
Silva broke his left tibia and fibula at UFC 168 in his rematch with current champion Chris Weidman and immediately underwent an operation to insert an intramedullary rod into the tibia.
"I think it looked ugly," said Pettis. "It was nasty but that's like saying in basketball when somebody twists or breaks their ankle, 'You can't dunk like that because he did it that way.' It's not even a factor."
On the mend himself, Pettis has been sidelined with a torn posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) since he took the title off Ben Henderson at UFC 164 in August of 2013.
Pettis reportedly suffered a partial tear in his left PCL against Henderson, tearing it completely eight weeks later at his first day back to full training.
"I checked a kick and just the wrong pressure, again," said Pettis. "He hit my knee in the right spot, tore my PCL. It's a common injury in what happens with car crashes when your knee hits the dashboard. The recovery wasn't bad. Simple surgery. Recovery went perfect. It was just the time off. No kicking for six months. I'd been kickboxing my whole life so I just had a year of finding out a lot about myself."
Pettis defends his lightweight title to Gilbert Melendez in the co-main event at UFC 181 Dec. 6 in Las Vegas, Nevada.