Exclusive – Chris Curtis reveals the extent of his hamstring injury, provides timeline for return
Chris Curtis’ hamstring is hanging on for dear life.
On just two weeks’ notice, ‘The Action Man’ returned to the Octagon one week from the promotion’s landmark UFC 300 event in Las Vegas for a Fight Night headliner against rising middleweight contender Brendan Allen.
After a 25-minute war that fans immediately dubbed a Fight of the Year contender, ‘All In’ was declared the victor via a razor-close and highly questionable split decision. Adding insult to injury, Curtis went down in the closing seconds of the fifth round after suffering a hamstring injury.
Unable to get back to his feet, Curtis had to be taken out of The APEX on a stretcher.
Speaking with Mike Owens in a LowKick MMA exclusive interview, Chris Curtis revealed that his hamstring had not completely torn off, as originally predicted. Instead, he has multiple tears with about 10% of the tendons still attached. Immediately undergoing therapy, the Cincinnati native offered a timeline for his potential return to the Octagon.
“It looks like I tore my hamstring in two places,” Curtis said. “I’ve got a mid-grade tear and a high-grade tear. We thought originally that I tore it completely off, but it looks like 10% of my hamstring is holding on still like Bruce Willis in Die Hard so shout out to my hamstring for holding it down. We start stem cell therapy today. If everything goes well, we’re looking at five months. If the stem cells don’t take, we may have to do surgery and then eight to nine months.”
All things considered, Chris Curtis is still happy with his performance
Despite the injury and the subsequent loss, Chris Curtis is happy with his performance — especially after coming off the couch with just a couple of weeks to prepare and a hell of a sinus infection to boot.
“It’s really a bittersweet thing for me,” Curtis added. “Performance-wise, I’m really happy with myself. We did a lot in two weeks and the worst part of that was probably two days after we took the fight, I got really sick. I am just blowing brown snot and blood out of my nose for a week. I had a really bad sinus infection.”
He continued, “It was a really rough two weeks, but we f*cking pulled through. We sucked it up and I went out there and fought five rounds hard. Honestly, I thought I won it. Looking back on it, I think my hamstring going out in the last 15 seconds kinda swayed it, but I still think I won.”
With the loss, Curtis fell to 5-3 under the UFC banner, 31-11 overall. Still, Curtis is holding onto his No. 14 spot in the middleweight division’s top 15.
Check out the full exclusive interview with Chris Curtis below:
