if conor mcgregor returns to mma he will have a technical advantage here's why
ufc fans watching around the unfortunately conor mcgregor's leg got jacked all the way up in the
mcgregor poirier 3 trilogy at ufc 264. but if conor mcgregor comes back to mma he will have
a technical advantage against his future opponents bro what are you talking about man stay tuned and
i'll tell you why hey interns i'm dr chris rainer and i am not your everyday ortho i teach you about
injuries orthopedic surgery and medical topics in a way that's easy to understand
and entertaining today i'm going to show you what factors contributed to conor mcgregor's
injury and more importantly why i believe that he will have an advantage over his opponents if
and when he comes back to mma if you think you know when conor will return
put that in the comments below now stay tuned to the end of the video to see how mcgregor's injury
was different than chris weidman's with that being said let's get to it conor mcgregor and dustin
poirier faced off for the third time at ufc 264 on july 10 2021. in this meeting the stage was set
as the final leg of a fight trilogy that had had each fighter previously victorious over the other
this was the fight to determine which the two was the true champion in this fight poirier was
positioned by oddsmakers as the likely winner but only by a narrow margin in their previous outing
on january 23 2021 pourier had won in the second round by technical knockout in that fight poirier
focused on nullifying mcgregor's offense with a barrage of calf kicks once mcgregor was
immobilized by the attack poirier was able to finish him off with a series of punches
2 minutes and 32 seconds into the round mcgregor who was unhappy with the loss wanted an immediate
rematch with poirier to avenge his loss the fight was scheduled for july 2021 and mcgregor trained
for six months to prepare himself for the fight it was reported that mcgregor was intently focusing
on preparing for the fight and was determined to be victorious in this third meeting many were
anxious to see mcgregor's strategy for the fight and to learn how he planned to deal with poirier
and the viewers did not have to wait long before they saw what conor had planned for the meeting
mcgregor came out firing on all freaking cylinders with two spin kicks blasted in
poirier's direction in very quick succession he followed with two roundhouse kicks the first of
which connected on the outside of poiyi's knee the next two kicks included another roundhouse to the
outside of the knee which poirier instantly acknowledged and a teep kick to the abdomen
at this point it was clear that mcgregor intended to use the same weapon to defeat poirier that
poirier had used to defeat him six months earlier all in all not including knees mcgregor threw 22
kicks during the match eight of which were hard roundhouse kicks to the thigh or to the outer knee
seven of these roundhouse kicks came prior to mcgregor's attempted submission on poirier
only two kicks came after the combatants exchange on the canvas a roundhouse kick to the thigh and
the final teep kick as mcgregor stepped back from the teep kick mcgregor's lower tibia showed a
subtle deformation then as mcgregor stepped back to throw a cross the end of the tibia collapsed
and mcgregor fell to the canvas from the deformity it was clear that mcgregor had suffered a combined
fracture of the tibia and fibula at the junction of the middle and distal thirds fortunately
mcgregor did not also suffer a laceration after having stood on the deformed lower leg
which would have elevated the severity of his injury to another level mcgregor was transported
to cedars-sinai hospital in la where he underwent operative fixation of his fractures on july 11th
the following day his fractures were treated with an intramedullary nail for the tibia and platen
screw stabilization of the fibula even though we don't have his x-rays available for review
this fixation combination confirms a few things about mcgregor's injuries first the intramedullary
nail for the tibia confirms that the tibia fracture was more than five centimeters above
the ankle joint line in the shaft so no daniel cormier the ankle itself was not directly involved
the fracture deformity suggested that this was the case fractures that are closer to the
ankle joint require plate fixation rather than nail fixation as the nail cannot be stabilized
appropriately with less than five centimeters of intact bone second both bones were involved in the
fracture pattern since both bones were stabilized separately plate fixation is the standard approach
for stabilization of fibular fractures while intramedullary nail fixation is the preferred
technique for stabilization of uncomplicated tibial shaft fractures but what we can't discern
from the fracture is the type of fracture that occurred for this we have to look to the mechanism
of injury the deforming force most closely associated with the final fracture is a rotational
moment as mcgregor attempted to step into the cross as i have said many times before bones
are great in compression but they absolutely suck in rotation the fact that rotation was involved in
the completion of the fracture suggests that conor suffered a spiral oblique fracture of the tibia
the most frequent fracture pattern associated with the rotational mechanism of injury however the
mechanism may not have been so clear-cut and it may have occurred in several stages the question
on everybody's mind is when during the fight did the injury occur i would like to acknowledge
my colleagues steve mora corey kalandin michael porkowski for their insights in discussing this
injury online while the most obvious injury occurred when mcgregor stepped back for the
second time the true injury occurred elsewhere there are two other clues that give us more
information about the moments that contributed to the final injury immediately after getting back
to his feet mcgregor fires off a roundhouse kick that strikes poirier in the outer thigh
this is the 21st kick that mcgregor has thrown in the first four and a half minutes and the eighth
roundhouse attempted in the fight he successfully throws a teep kick immediately afterward and then
steps back after having watched the replay several times at one quarter speed it becomes clear that
when mcgregor threw the roundhouse kick there was plastic deformation of the tibia on contact
this is the term used to describe a bone that bends without fully breaking but then returns
back to normal this can occur in the context of an intact bone or in the context of a bone that
has broken on one side but not the other then after stepping back following the teep kick
it is clear that there is more plastic deformation of the tibia both of these episodes suggest that
the break was present prior to the roundhouse kick after the ground mealy based on this information
i suspect the break involved only a single cortex of the bone when it occurred so what
other opportunities were there in the fight for the break to occur or at least to be initiated
my colleague has suggested that the initial injury may have occurred when pouring a blocked
teeth kick with his forearm potentially striking mcgregor on the shin with his elbow however after
reviewing that sequence several times in slow motion i'm not sure that the contact occurs
with the end of the elbow and i suspect that the contact was more with the forearm than it was with
the end of the elbow a forearm strike would be less likely to cause the injury that we observed
as the forearm would be the weaker of the two bones in that interaction others including poirier
have suggested that the injury occurred with one of the first roundhouse kicks to the outside of
poirier's knee when poirier pointed to mcgregor's leg however this sequence when reviewed in slow
motion shows that mcgregor contacted poirier's knee with the top of his foot not the tibia so
although poirier may have seen or felt something on impact this was not the moment when the injury
occurred when the footage is reviewed in slow motion it does not appear that there were many
instances where the injury could have occurred so if not during the fight when might the injury have
happened joe rogan noted that mcgregor's coach kavanagh commented after the injury that mcgregor
had suffered an injury to that leg while training for the fight they thought that he may have
cracked the tibia with mcgregor even going for a scan for it which to my knowledge was negative
they had even consulted an orthopedic surgeon in california in the weeks prior to ufc 264 but
nothing significant had been found perhaps there was an injury that had just gone unnoticed so what
are the factors that contributed to mcgregor's injury in my mind there are four factors that
contributed to mcgregor's tibia fracture his pre-fight training regimen his fight strategy
his kick selection and the overall animosity with poirier three of these factors are closely linked
with one another after having been dissected by poirier with kicks in their second fight
mcgregor and his team made the conscious choice to use high-powered kicks as an integral part of
their strategy within only a few seconds of the start of the fight mcgregor had already released
a barrage of kicks half of which were targeting poirier's legs and all of which were coming
with freaking heat this was clearly the strategy coming into the fight and is likely something that
was practiced frequently during the training camp leading up to it prior to the fight reporters had
commented how intensely mcgregor was training in preparation for the rematch training would
likely have included many thousands of kicks on the bag the pads or directly on training partners
the fact that mcgregor and his team suspected a tibia injury in the weeks prior to the fight
speaks to the possibility that mcgregor was indeed vigorously training in accordance with this
strategy thousands of sub-maximal strikes with the tibia against a bag or pads in a relatively
concentrated period of time approximately six months could certainly weaken the bone and cause
a stress fracture in the tibia however the other factor that was intimately associated with the
first two factors was the kick selection with 22 total kicks being attempted in the first four and
a half minutes of the fight the strategy involved using mcgregor's legs as much as it did his hands
of the kicks that were delivered one third of them were roundhouse kicks that were delivered
forcefully to poirier's legs these kicks much more so than the other kicks employed
caused the tibia to be subjected to bending forces with a potential seed of injury being
placed during the months and weeks leading up to the fight and the nurturing of that seed with the
kick selection and the repeated roundhouse kicks during the first round of the fight the eventual
result was the fruit of the fracture that occurred 20 seconds before the end of the first round the
final factor that may have played a role in the injury was the animosity real or manufactured
with poirier mcgregor has always been quite rash and never wanted to steer away from confrontation
in his exchanges with his opponents however there seemed to be a heightened level of personal enmity
between mcgregor and poirier if this were real and not a planned performance purely for entertainment
purposes then it is possible that mcgregor let his emotions run rampant and he put a little something
extra on his kicks of course the goal is always to incapacitate your opponent with kicks like this
and so typically they will be delivered forcefully at their target however if you truly hate your
opponent with your every fiber then you are going to want to put a little hot sauce on them just for
good measure did poirier get mcgregor's head and force mcgregor to overexert himself i don't know
it is certainly possible so with all of that being said what do i think happened and why do i think
mcgregor will have an advantage when he returns my suspicion is that mcgregor likely suffered a
stress fracture while training prior to the fight while not enough to incapacitate him it was enough
to elicit a medical examination and to affect his training afterwards with that injury in the
background and the game plan selected for the fight it was only a matter of time before the
inevitable occurred as i said earlier bones are great in compression but they absolutely suck in
rotation and unfortunately for mcgregor they are not that great in tension either especially if you
repeatedly try to bend them over your opponent's thigh the repeated blows over the distal shin
cause the gradual propagation of the stress fracture from one cortex throughout the tibial
shaft successive roundhouse kicks caused the plastic deformation of the tibia further weakening
the bone the final push-off while throwing the cross added an element of rotation to the mix and
voila tin fib fracture mcgregor's fracture was stabilized with an intramedullary titanium nail
a rod that is placed down the center of the tibial shaft and a plate screw fixation of the fibula
this is the standard technique for fixing fractures of this type titanium is used because
it has a modulus of elasticity that is similar to that of bone and that just means that it bends and
deforms similarly to bone when used to stabilize a tibial fracture it functions as a load bearing
device until the fracture is healed at which point it becomes redundant and this just means
that technically after surgery you could walk on it normally without fear that the bone would break
however once healed it is still in the bone so it does offer an element of protection against
further fracture in fact because its modulus of elasticity is so similar to that of bone it's kind
of like having a tibia inside a tibia like a taco within a taco a double decker taco supreme when
you think of it that way it just might be a secret weapon that mcgregor will have in his back pocket
when he returns in my opinion in the future it will take a lot more heat than what mcgregor
was cooking up at ufc 264 to damage that leg when he returns to competition and why was mcgregor's
fracture different that of chris weidman i have talked about chris weidman's injury in another
video but based on the information that i have at hand it would appear that wydman's fracture
was a fluke injury that occurred as a result of the manner in which uriah hall checked his kick
it does not appear that it was associated with a pre-weakened tibia that might have been
conditioned for injury with a stress fracture mcgregor's injury on the other hand seems to
have been the culmination of a series of events and decisions both conscious and unconscious that
set up the perfect storm for his injury a training regimen that led to a stress fracture before the
fight a fight strategy focused heavily on kicks a kick selection that repeatedly subjected the tibia
to repeated tension forces sounds like he needs some milk to me but in all seriousness i wish the
notorious one well on his recovery and i can't wait to see him back in the octagon competing
once he is recovered from his injury so that is why i think that mcgregor will have an advantage
if and when he returns to mma in the future thanks for watching i will see you for
rounds next week and as always that's been a word from dr chris not your everyday ortho