Cameras showed UFC lightweight Benoit Saint Denis celebrating at UFC Paris. They then re-enacted the horrific aftermath of Saint Denis’ win.
Saint Denis’ big toe was a bloody mess after his bonus-winning knockout of Gabriel Miranda on Saturday, and the France native said it could have been much worse.
” After a few kicks it split in half, almost,” Saint Denis said to reporters following the Accor Arena event. It’s all about the fight. You never have a perfect preparation. There are always small injuries. It’s a part of life for athletes, so now, I will take time to heal it up.”
Check out a closeup of the injury revealed during the ESPN post-fight show, and for those who are squeamish, you’ve been warned.
The injury, which Saint Denis said he first suffered before his previous fight against Niklas Stolze, made training camp for that fight doubly hard.
“I could not lift my toe any more, but I wanted to fight,” he said. “We did no surgery. The surgery was not necessary. I did experience a few instances where my toes were touching the ground. This caused me some pain so I needed to wear shoes.
“I had surgery six weeks after my fight with Niklas. I only had three weeks to train for the fight. It was the best and hardest camp I ever had, because obviously, three weeks, the first two weeks you feel like s***, because you haven’t trained for a long time. Last week I felt great but my toes were a little too open .”
Saint Denis reasoned it was only 15 minutes, and what could go wrong from there? As it turned out, quite a lot. But he was still able to jump onto the cage in celebration after stopping Miranda early, and a $50,000 bonus check for “Performance of the Night” undoubtedly eased the sting.
To add to that, Saint Denis got married just before the fight. A little honeymoon limp shouldn’t hurt too much.
Check out Saint Denis’ full interview, courtesy MMA Crazy.
