Jamie Varner Suffers Broken Hand in Second Round Against Joe Lauzon

When UFC on Fox 4 was over, Jamie Varner may have walked away with a loss, but he didn’t walk away empty handed.

For the second time in three months, Varner stepped up on short notice to help save a fight for the UFC, and his performance did not disappoint.

The former WEC lightweight champion this time accepted a fight with Joe Lauzon and proceeded to put on a “Fight of the Night” display, which earned him a $50,000 bonus.

Unfortunately, a late mistake in the third and final round during a transition on the ground cost Varner the fight. He got caught in a triangle choke submission from Lauzon that forced him to tap out, bringing the bout to an end.

The reason Varner was even in that position was because of what happened to close out the second round.

“Looks like I broke my fourth metacarpal, just broke it. You can see the knuckle’s gone. One of my right hands I landed, it was gone, it hurt pretty bad,” Varner revealed when speaking to Fuel TV after the fight, showing a very swollen hand.

“In the second round, I slipped his jab came over with the overhand right and I hit the top of his head, and I felt it right away.”

The broken hand took away Varner’s most potent weapon on the feet.

“I told my corner after the second round ‘hey, my hand’s broken,’ they’re like ‘alright, we’re going to have to take him down then.’ The takedowns worked well until I got reversed into the triangle,” said Varner.

The broken hand may have cost Varner the fight, but it definitely didn’t dampen the overall performance by both lightweights as they put on one of the best fights to this point of the year.

Varner will now wait for the swelling to go down on his hand a bit and get x-rays to see to what extent the damage was actually done before being diagnosed with a recovery time.

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