Paige VanZant Hoping For Year-End Return After Several Arm Surgeries
Paige VanZant picked up a big win in January and was looking to continue the momentum.
Yet, that wasn’t the case. Instead, VanZant re-broke her arm and was set for surgery. Now, she is recovering and hoping she gets the all-clear to start training this week.
“My arm feels good but my mind is still uneasy,” VanZant said to MMA Fighting. “Before I had my first surgery, I felt great, I went in and my arm was still broken. I had to have a second surgery. I’m at the point where I don’t trust myself.
“I feel really good but my mind still isn’t at peace until I go in and have my first CT scan. I go in on Wednesday. So Wednesday is the day I get to go in and get my CT scan, see if my arm is healing and hopefully get cleared to start training. I can honestly say I’ve done everything correctly, I haven’t rushed anything.
“I’ve been doing everything it takes to heal this stupid arm. The plan is to fight at the end of the year. I’m hoping I’ll get some good news on Wednesday and I’ll move forward from there.”
VanZant also wants this last fight to go perfectly as she is on the final fight of her contract. She knows heading into free agency on a two-fight winning streak would be huge for her and her career. So, even though she wanted to train, she laid back and did what the doctors told her.
“That’s the hard thing. It’s a mind trip because I am doing nothing right now but I have to understand that doing nothing is doing something,” VanZant explained. “I need to not do anything. I need to sit and just let my arm heal. And that was kind of the issue I ran into before.
“I keep thinking I’m an athlete and I need to keep working out, I need to keep my body in shape and I need to do all these things and there was just too much motion in my arm for it to heal. Now I have to understand and it’s a blessing I moved up a weight class because all I can do is sit here and diet. I wasn’t supposed to run for the first eight weeks.
“I wasn’t supposed to do anything to overexert myself so no running, no heavy walking, they really wanted my arm to be as still as possible because they know I have problems healing. It was telling myself it was OK to just sit on the couch all day. That is still something to help my arm.”
Who do you think Paige VanZant should fight when she returns to the Octagon?
