Aaron Kennedy battles through adversity, reconstructive surgery needed after facial fractures in ROC 84 victory
Aaron Kennedy, a professional mixed martial artist out of Pennsylvania, earned arguably the biggest win of his career on Friday night. The cost of victory did not come cheap, however.
When the 30-year-old fighter shot in on his Ring of Combat 84 opponent in the opening seconds of their fight, he took a knee to the face that immediately shattered his nose and orbital bone.
Miraculously, Kennedy weathered the storm and defeated Ahmed Khamis by way of pillow choke in the second round. After spending most of the weekend in the hospital, the bantamweight fight has provided updates to his status on social media.
“What a weekend! THANK YOU to my sponsors, friends and fans who came all the way to Atlantic City to support me,” Kennedy wrote on social medoa. “We were one of the biggest and definitely the loudest crowd in town. I apologize that I wasn’t able to come out and have drinks and chat with everybody after the fight but unfortunately I spent the entire evening and next morning at the hospital. For those of you who didn’t realize it, both my nose and right orbital were completely broken in the first 10 seconds of the fight with that knee. Obviously I pushed forward and continued to attack in spite of the vision and breathing complications, but man did it hurt like hell. Hearing you guys cheering me on when you realized I wasn’t backing off or slowing down is exactly what I needed. Submitting the opponent with that choke and making it clear who the better fighter is was supremely satisfying after all that adversity. I will need some downtime because I’m getting some reconstructive surgery to my nose and a titanium plate in my orbital, but I’ll be back soon enough, and the next performance will be better than the last.”
Kennedy tells MyMMANews that he is seeing an ophthalmologist today to get cleared for surgery next week.
With the win, Kennedy moves to 4-2 as a pro but will likely sit the remained of 2024 on the sidelines.
