Credit: MMANytt
Anthony Smith says he nearly amputated finger in order to keep on fighting
Anthony Smith was willing to amputate his finger in order to keep on fighting.
After “Lionheart” beat Alexander Gustafsson by submission back at UFC Stockholm, he had to have surgery for his hand. Yet, the surgery never worked the first time and he said he was close to amputating his finger instead of having surgery again.
“I had two [surgeries],” Smith said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via MMA Fighting). “The first one failed. I went into my six-week checkup after my first surgery and the plate was broken and the bone had shifted back again… So they went back in, they took the plate off, they drilled one hole in my femur, one in my shin, and they took out the spongy bone material they used for bone grafts in my hand. And, then they put another plate on the side of it instead of on top because there are so many large holes. So they put it on the side and then filled the holes with the spongy bone from my leg. So that was a rough one. Then I couldn’t close my hand for probably two months. My left hand.
“I almost cut my finger off,” Smith continued. “We were going to amputate my pointer finger because all the scar tissue was grabbing onto the ligament and not allowing it to close and slide back and forth. So the idea was that if we amputated the finger and then screwed those ligaments to the bone after it healed. That I could still use the other three fingers and my thumb to grapple. But there would still technically be a knuckle there so I could punch.”
Luckily, Anthony Smith tried out a different type of therapy which worked and avoided him amputating his finger. Now, Lionheart will return to the Octagon in the main event of UFC Lincoln against Glover Teixeira.
