Originally Posted by MMAJunkie

UFC 97 offers second chance for Denis Kang


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Imagine you have a desk job and, on your day off, you break your ankle. Think about how long it would be before you'd be back at your desk. Then think about how many of the company softball games you'll miss. Or how many weeks you may miss in the company's bowling league.

It's almost inconceivable you'd be able to run the bases in three weeks, let alone fight someone.

Yet Denis Kang (31-11-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) made his highly anticipated debut in the Ultimate Fighting Championship at UFC 93 in Dublin, Ireland, not long after fracturing his left ankle.

He fractured his ankle on the first day of training in December 2008 for his fight with Alan Belcher (14-5 MMA, 5-3 UFC), and he struggled to get three weeks of camp in before the fight.

His performance was less than what was expected of a guy who for years has been regarded among the world's finest middleweights – Belcher submitted Kang with a guillotine choke in the second round – but do you think it might have had something to do with that gimpy ankle?

Kang wouldn't say it because he didn't want to take anything away from Belcher. But be serious: How strong could the ankle have been after he broke it, took two weeks off and then was in a fight three weeks later?

"I'm the kind of guy who doesn't want to pull out of a fight, no matter what," Kang said. "If there is a way I can fight, I'll fight.

"Anyone who fights for a living knows you really never are healthy in a fight. My right hand has been broken three times. You should see what I've gone through with that. It looks like a lump of flesh and bones. You do what you have to do. Injuries are part of it."

Kang will be healthy – or as reasonably close to it as he can expect to be – when he meets Xavier Foupa-Pokam (20-9 MMA, 0-0 UFC) at UFC 97 on April 18 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.