Joe Riggs Ready to Return, Draws ‘Killa B’ Ben Saunders
Joe Riggs Ready to Return, Draws ‘Killa B’ Ben Saunders
It was the most horrific event in his life as he nearly saw the end, but Joe Riggs is finally all healed up from an accidental shooting that happened earlier this summer.
The 31-year old Riggs was taking apart a firearm in his house in Arizona on July 28, when ‘Diesel’ accidentally shot himself in his hand and left thigh just weeks before his first scheduled UFC bout since 2006
“I lost consciousness before the Air Evac got to my house, so I was laying there and my wife was putting her entire finger in my wound, because she thought my femoral was hit and all that stuff,” he said. “When you don’t feel pain anymore, that’s not a good thing, and it started to not hurt. And I started to let go and go to sleep. So, I know those things sort of go hand-in-hand with dying. So I told my wife to get my son from the bedroom so I could say goodbye to him. And it is something that must have been very traumatizing to my son. But I said it to him because I thought I was going, and it was just a sad situation for him.”
The images of the wounds were graphic and it amazing that he is even able to walk or run at all after seeing a hole through both ends of a human thigh, however Riggs has been cleared by doctors and has begun training.
He kept stating all along that he wanted to be back in time for a December fight when the UFC lands in Arizona for the first time.
Riggs is on a six-fight win streak including a win over Mike Bronzoulis when Diesel made history as the first ever Bellator Fight Master (a television series sort of like the Ultimate Fighter but under the Bellator banner).
He won’t have an easy fight however upon return. Riggs has drawn a fight with another history maker, Ben ‘Killa B’ Saunders who holds the record for the first ever UFC win by Omoplata submission. Saunders defeated Chris Heatherly with the hold on Aug. 23.
Saunders, also 31 years of age is 17-6-2.
