Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson will not need surgery after all after second opinion

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The UFC's first-ever Flyweight Championship bout may not be delayed as much as was previously thought, as Demetrious Johnson revealed on Monday that he did not suffer a hernia as initially feared following his win over Ian McCall earlier this month.

In an interview with MMAWeekly.com, Johnson described what happened in the fight, and why his initial diagnosis was believed to be a hernia.

"Basically, what happened was when I got kicked in the groin I’m assuming, but with my testicles there’s wires that connect to the back of it, and the wires on my left side were pretty severely swollen so my doctor gave me an anti-inflammatory," Johnson said. "He checked it out today and he was like 'you don’t have a hernia, the first doctor who did the search for it he misdiagnosed you for a hernia because you were so swollen down there when he was checking, that’s why he misdiagnosed you with a hernia.'"

That means Johnson will avoid surgery, and instead will just need a couple of weeks of recovery. That timetable may allow his fight with Joseph Benavidez to happen as soon as possible after already being delayed by Johnson's rematch with McCall.

"He said take it easy, give it a chance for the swelling to go down," Johnson said. "Like when I walk around it's fine, but when he touched it or aggravated it, it hurts for a little bit. He said two weeks, the first week you know just relax with it, let it heal, and then maybe next week start doing [training]. I'm getting x-rays on my hands on Wednesday because it's still hurting. Each time I shake somebody's hand I'm shaking it like a little [expletive] cause I don't want anybody to touch my fist."

"I'm just happy I don't have to get surgery," Johnson stated. "The fight between me and Joseph [Benavidez], it's going to happen. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about my own health first cause when I go into this fight I want to make sure I go in 100-percent instead of going into training camp with a hairline fracture on my hand or whatever."

Penick's Analysis: Johnson's a little wary of putting a timetable on the return, just because he doesn't want to tell the UFC one thing then have something set him back with this, but this is definitely good news. There's an FX card in the middle September they could headline, seeing as they've had all the flyweight tournament fights on FX; or, if he's ready by Sept. 1, they could be the co-main on the Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson event. Either way, it's good that he won't need surgery.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_13633.shtml

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