Written by Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo | Photo by Randy Thomas/Getty Images
Deiveson Figueiredo suffered a nasty knee injury in his loss to Cory Sandhagen at UFC Des Moines, but the two-time flyweight champion won’t have to undergo surgery to repair the damage done.
On Thursday, Figueiredo’s manager Alex Davis told MMA Fighting that the Brazilian suffered a tear in the anterolateral ligament in his knee. Fortunately for the fighter, the injury wasn’t severe enough to require him to go under the knife. Instead, Figueiredo just needs to go through physical therapy, which he has already started, and rest the knee as he recovers.
The injury occurred in the second round when Sandhagen sat up during a grappling exchange. As Sandhagen shifted forward, his legs were tangled up with Figueiredo, who immediately grimaced from pain in his knee. A second later, Figueiredo was tapping out and the fight was stopped with Sandhagen earning the victory by TKO due to an injury.
“It’s very painful,” Davis told MMA Fighting about the kind of knee injury Figueiredo suffered. “But he did not get finished. It was just a freak accident.”
Replays showed Figueiredo’s knee seemingly popping when Sandhagen sat up from the grappling exchange and the pained look on his face was undeniable. Figueiredo was eventually helped out of the octagon before returning home to Brazil where he sought medical treatment.
With a diagnosis that allows him to avoid surgery, Figueiredo is “already asking to fight again” with hopes he’ll be able to return to the gym sooner rather than later.
It was an unfortunate ending to the fight after Figueiredo hoped to get back on track when he faced Sandhagen in the UFC’s return to Iowa. The loss Figueiredo was his second straight after earning three impressive wins in a row following a move from flyweight up to bantamweight.
While there’s no exact timeline on when Figueiredo might book another fight, Davis says he’s anxious to get back to work once his knee heals and he expects to hit the ground running.