Li Jingliang is speaking out after being forced to sit out of this weekend’s UFC 287 card.
The UFC welterweight contender took to Instagram to talk about the spine injury that made him withdraw from his upcoming bout with Michael Chiesa, which was set to take place on Saturday on the big UFC 287 Miami fight card.
According to Jingliang, his injury occurred during training for UFC 287 and he believes the injury was due to an “accumulated effect” and not specifically one thing.
“As many of you already know, I injured my spine during fight camp and was forced to withdraw from my fight against Michael Chiesa at UFC 287,” Li wrote. “The injury was an accumulated effect from all the rigorous training that I had put my body through in the past several months especially all the extra BJJ and wrestling work I put in to prepare for beating a submission artist. I was feeling extremely confident and was never so ready for a fight when the injury happened.”
“I’d been waiting for too long for my moment since last year so I tried to power through it until I reached a point where the pain was worsening and expanding across my entire upper body; no amount of physical therapy or ibuprofen was able to fix the problem; and my fight preparation was completely stalled because of it. When the doctors explained to me how dangerous it would be for me to keep pushing my limits, I decided to wise up and take their advice to let my body heal.”
Li Jingliang fought at UFC 279 back in September, where he suffered a split decision loss to Daniel Rodriguez.
It’s currently unclear when Jingliang will be back in the cage after his latest setback.
