Paige VanZant Announces ‘Serious Surgery’ After Failing To Heal

Women’s flyweight Paige VanZant will be out of the octagon for a significant amount of time.

The former strawweight contender, who was last seen losing via decision to Jessica Rose-Clark at UFC St. Louis, broke her arm in that bout and had surgery following the fight but has reportedly failed to heal.

That’s lead to her requiring a second, more ‘serious’ surgery according to a post she made on Instagram today, where she speculated she returned to training too quickly. Based on the details, it does seem rather serious, with bone fragments being taken from her hip to repair her arm:

“Arm Update” I unfortunately and sadly have to inform all of my fans who have been standing by my side that my arm surgery has failed. For whatever reason my bone still is totally broken in my arm and shows no sign of healing or progression. All that we can guess is that I went back to training too quickly and didn’t give my arm the proper time to heal without any motion.

“This is the downfall of athletes, pushing through pain when they should not. I will be going in for another more serious surgery next month where they will take bone fragments from my hip to fill the break and put another bigger plate in. I will take the time off to heal this go around. I will be back to the UFC and I will fight many more fights in the future. Send some prayers up for me for recovery. Thank you.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj7_4Stl011/?utm_source=ig_embed

VanZant had originally estimated she would be able to punch in three months back in March. Her timeline for return is now unknown after news of her second, ominous-sounding procedure.