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Champ Cain Velasquez says he was willing to fight with an injury at UFC 180

Champ Cain Velasquez says he was willing to fight with an injury at UFC 180

UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez said that even before a ruptured MCL forced him to pull out of his planned title defense Saturday in Mexico City against Fabricio Werdum in the main event of UFC 180, he was struggling with another knee injury.

But he so desperately wanted to continue, he told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, that he was willing to fight with a torn meniscus. It was only when he ruptured his MCL that he pulled out of the bout.

"I felt it was pretty loose. In training, I felt like my body would switch one way but my leg would kind of stay in one direction. So I kind of felt like it wasn't stable. It just sucked, you know what I mean? Going through practice everyday, and just limiting [myself], not really doing the stuff that I could do as far as rolling. I tried to roll, some days I could, some days I couldn't, and I just said, 'Hey, I'm going to just baby it until I get two weeks out, and once I get two weeks out, I'm going to try to do everything. Kick, be on the ground, it doesn't matter, but I'm going to do what I can to make the fight.

"And when I finally realized that I can't do it, it's just not working for me, it just sucked. It felt like something was destined, you know what I mean. Like, this is where I'm destined to be, I'm destined to fight on this card, and it just didn't turn out that way. So it was just kind of devastating to me."

Velasquez hasn't fought since defeating Junior dos Santos at UFC 166 on Oct. 19, 2013, in Houston. He is not sure when he'll be able to return.

He said he believes he'll be fine once he finishes rehabilitation, and said he had no thought of quitting.

"When I train, I train well. I think if something's wrong with me, I just kind of work through it. That's my mentality. If something hurts or something is injured, I think my pain tolerance is pretty high to where, it's pretty bad where I might need surgery, but I'll just kind of work through it. So, you know, again it's part of the sport. We all go through it. I might've gone through it more than most, but I'm going to keep doing it."

Velasquez also seemed to give an edge to Werdum, who will now fight Mark Hunt for the interim title. He'll meet the winner when he's healthy.

"I think Mark Hunt just has that knockout power, and that's pretty much it. I think Werdum, with his length, also if it goes to wrestling, if it goes on the ground, Werdum has it. I think on the feet, with the power that Hunt has, I think he has a good chance of winning it there. But I think that's pretty much it."

Velasquez will be in Mexico City to watch Saturday's bout, but it's a big blow to the UFC to not have him compete. It is one of a series of major injuries that has sidelined the biggest stars during all or most of 2014. In addition to Velasquez, stars such as Anderson Silva, Anthony Pettis, Nick Diaz, Gilbert Melendez and Junior dos Santos haven't fought yet in 2014.

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