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A nagging hand injury that Jones has battled since college took him out of that fight, however, as a number of doctors that he had seen suggested surgery on torn ligaments in his hand was the necessary next step.
Now, though, Jones is no longer getting that surgery after visiting with another specialist, and his manager Malki Kawa revealed on Twitter today that Jones will be able to return to action earlier than expected. However, he's not stepping back into the fight with Evans immediately, and the former Champion will still need to defeat Davis to get back into a fight with his former teammate.
In comments made to MMAJunkie.com, Kawa expanded upon his Twitter statements to give a clearer picture of the situation with Jones at the moment.
"He has a torn ligament, and the only way you can actually repair it is by surgery," he said. "If you're not a fighter or someone who uses his hand, you can just completely leave it alone, and the pain might go away, but you're always going to have that tear there, so the doctors asked us what we wanted to do. Initially, Jon didn't want to have surgery. But as we kept getting additional opinions from doctors we all trusted, they all recommended having surgery based on the initial report from the UFC's orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Steven Sanders."
That was, however, until Jones saw Dr. Vahey and got the second opinion, giving him an option of of not needing to go under the knife just yet.
"The actual thumb itself, the actual ligaments that attach to the knuckles, are torn," Kawa said. "In between the forefinger in the thumb is some additional damage in those two areas, which is why that area gets so swollen... Based on the reports, Dr. Vahey also thought surgery was necessary. But when he had Jon in front of him and starting working with his thumb and doing the necessary tests, he determined Jon's range of motion was satisfactory despite the pain. He told Jon, 'Look, your thumb is not 100 percent, but it's close enough that I feel comfortable saying if you don't want surgery, you don't have to have it.'
"At that point, we were facing a decision as to whether we wanted to do the surgery or not. Jon went back to his initial feeling, which is to just gut it out. Jon was prepared to listen to the doctor's advice, but Dr. Sanders told us Dr. Vahey was the best in the business when it comes to hand injuries, and Dr. Vahey told us he thought surgery was a little bit invasive at this point and perhaps too much."
After getting the second opinion, Jones is now under medical advisement to not train until June 11, at which time he'll prepare for his return fight, which may or may not come against Evans depending on what happens on August 6 between Evans and Davis.
"We met with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta and let them know we would like to set up a fight to get back in the cage as quickly as possible," Kawa said. "Because of the timing and everything, we don't know yet who that will be. It could very likely still be Rashad if he gets by Phil Davis, but we could fight sooner, maybe September, October or November depending on what the UFC wants to do."
Link to Original Source Article
Penick's Analysis: The mistake from Jones' camp in all of this has been being public about every aspect of this. It was admitted that this would have been surgery to correct something that wasn't affecting his training, and that in turn has fueled Evans to state that Jones is faking things to get out of fighting him now. It's just given him ammunition where there didn't need to be any, and has made him look bad in this whole situation. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see the UFC pull Evans from the Davis fight to make this one right away, but if they don't then it will be Jones fighting either Evans or Rampage Jackson if Rampage beats Matt Hamill later this month.
Tadhg Steamfist Dixon Joe Doerksen Chris Dolman Edson Drago Tomasz Drwal
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