At UFC 175, Uriah Hall won a unanimous decision over Thiago Santos, and midway through the first round he suffered a gruesome dislocation on one of his toes. He was limping for more than two-thirds of the three-round fight but was still able to maintain dominance throughout.
On Monday, he tweeted an X-ray of his injury, which clearly shows his distal phalange, the third bone within his second toe, completely out of place, as was seen on the pay-per-view broadcast between each round of the fight.
"If you're not going after you're dreams, you just exist." #ufc175 #sqor #toemuchtoohandle http://t.co/pOmv0yvgDJ pic.twitter.com/5Jf8BEguOV
— uriah hall (@UriahHallMMA) July 7, 2014
It's not entirely clear when exactly the injury occurred, but Hall began limping from it with 2:01 on the clock in the first round after he caught a kick from Santos, tripped him and backed up after Santos immediately stood back up.
Hall wasn’t able to mount the type of offense seen in his last performance against Chris Leben, where he used a barrage of devastating punches and kicks to dismantle Leben and cause him to resign on his stool at the end of the first round.
He endured the pain and even threw several high kicks throughout the fight but was visibly struggling with the reality of the situation on his foot. The ringside physician came in and said something to him before the start of the third round, but the fight ultimately continued to the final bell.
The adrenaline started to wear off and the pain set in during Hall’s post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, and an emotional Hall said that he could feel his bone shift in and out of his skin with every movement while throwing kicks.
Even though he was in a lot of pain, Hall still had time to spread a positive message to the crowd, saying, “If you are not going after your dreams, guess what? You merely just exist. You don’t want to just exist. You want to do something. Be a part of life!”
