Kenny Florian Still Uncertain If He’ll Fight Again

“Right now I do what I can as far as the workouts that I can do,” Florian told the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “Sometimes I’ll try to push it a little bit and find out that my back definitely isn’t close to 100 percent. It’s tough. It’s been very, very frustrating just because I’m doing such limited work -- training -- from what I was doing before.”

Florian told the Herald he had herniated a disc in his lower back while lifting weights in November. He’s been trying to work out, but he said certain training sessions have actually set him back.

“I’m not going to get into the sport and injure myself because I didn’t train 100 percent,” Florian said. “I want to be able to train like I was before. I was keeping a schedule where I was training … six days a week, three times a day. If I’m not able to do that, if I can’t do two times a day or whatever, can’t keep a training schedule like that, I’m not going to compete. My health isn’t worth it. I’m someone that when I want to do something, I want to do it 100 percent.”

At this point, Florian is still hopeful he can make a full recovery. In the meantime he’ll continue his work as an analyst and also expects to have a future training fighters.

“I’ve had a chance to work with a bunch of fighters and I hope to work with some fighters in the future,” said Florian, who runs the Florian Martial Arts Center with his brother Keith in Brookline, Mass. “I feel that I do have a lot of different experiences with a lot of different things and some interesting training methods. I would love to be able to either take a fighter from scratch and develop him into a contender or work with some existing fighters right now that have established themselves. … I’ve had great coaches like Firas Zahabi and my brother Keith, where I’ve learned so much from them. If I can combine that with my own experience and my own training and my own fights, I think I have a lot to offer a lot of different fighters.”

Listen to the full interview (beginning at 1:10:29).