David Mitchell Faced Depression After Pulling Out of UFC Fight Against Mike Swick

David Mitchell

To say David Mitchell was disappointed when he realized he had to pull out of his scheduled bout against Mike Swick at UFC Fight for the Troops might be the understatement of the century.

Coming off the first loss of his pro career, Mitchell was excited to get the call to face a recognized name like Swick in only his second fight with the promotion.

Working with several top fighters, Mitchell was doing everything right to prepare for his January showdown, and then something went terribly wrong.

“I was doing a lot of boxing, working a lot with the Diaz brothers, and putting in a lot of rounds, and my shoulder, the lateral pec muscle tore up into the shoulder, where it connects with the shoulder,” Mitchell told MMAWeekly.com. “I’ve got a pretty good tear there. When I sustained that injury, I went and got an MRI.”

What the MRI revealed was the tear of his pectoral muscle, and despite the urging of his doctors and even coaches to pull out of the fight right away, Mitchell tried to remain in the fight.

“I tried to push through the injury a little bit. I trained for another week and I just had no strength in my shoulder. We just had to let the UFC know, and had to pull out of the fight unfortunately,” he explained.

Mitchell says that when it became difficult to even lift a glass or steer his car with the injured shoulder, there was no way he was going to be fight ready in just a few weeks. It may have been one of the lowest moments for Mitchell, who had been undefeated up till his lone UFC fight, and it made him crash, mentally.

“I got pretty depressed over it. Kind of fell off the wagon and started eating too much food, and I ballooned up a little bit. It was devastating,” said Mitchell. “Now I’m trying to turn it around and turn it into a positive. I guess it turns out Swick was having problems with his stomach, so maybe that fight was never going to happen anyways, and so maybe there’s a chance we can both get healthy and meet up again in July or something like that.”

Swick indeed admitted that the problems he had with a lingering esophageal condition that was originally misdiagnosed was still affecting him leading into the fight. When Mitchell pulled out, he opted to take some additional time off as well.

At this point, Mitchell still isn’t 100-percent sure what the final diagnosis on his shoulder will be. Doctors are split right now whether he can just do rehab or if the shoulder will require surgery, which would obviously prolong his time out from fighting.

“They’re still trying to figure that out. I’ve kind of just been resting it for the last couple weeks, and trying to rehabilitate it, but it’s kind of a bad tear so it might require surgery,” Mitchell admitted. “I’m hoping I can just rehab it and get back to full strength, and get back maybe end of February for training and then fight in the summer.”

If things work out and surgery is avoided, Mitchell wants to come back to the UFC in the summer, and hopes that a fight with Mike Swick is still in his future.

“I’d be stoked to still get that fight. It’s a huge fight, it’s a good match-up for me, huge name, it’s a great fight and I was bummed when it didn’t happen,” Mitchell said about Swick.

“That’s what I hope will happen and I believe it will, and I want to thank everyone for supporting me and I look forward to coming back as soon as I can.”