Patrick Cote says he's had 11 knee surgeries in decade-plus MMA career

At 34 years old, you won’t see UFC welterweight Patrick Cote following Donald Cerrone to the lake for some extracurricular wakeboarding.

The onetime middleweight title challenger told MMAjunkie Radio he’s had a staggering 11 surgeries on his knees in 12 years as a professional MMA fighter.

“I have a 70-year-old’s knees right now,” laughed Cote (20-8 MMA, 7-8 UFC), who next meets Stephen Thompson (9-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) at UFC 178 on Sept. 27 in Las Vegas. Previously, he requested a bout with onetime title challenger Thiago Alves.

Cote said doctors have operated on his ACL, MCL, meniscus, pretty much anything to do with his knee.

“It’s a tough sport, man.”

One of the surgeries was the end result of what was supposed to be the biggest fight of Cote’s career. In 2008, he fought then-middleweight champ Anderson Silva for the title when he blew out his ACL shortly after the start of the third round. Up until that point, he had taken some of Silva’s best shots and stayed in the fight.

Cote called the injury and its fallout “bad luck and bad time.” He spent 19 months on the bench in recovery.

“I would have preferred he knock me out cold rather than losing like that,” Cote said. “I was giving him a fight. I’m not saying that I was winning, but I was still there, and I’m a puncher. I have a chance in every round to win the fight if I connect in the right spot.

“If I think about my career, that’s the only thing I would do again. And not because it was a title fight, but because of the way it ended.”

The French-Canadian fighter’s heavy hands have gotten him pretty far, of course. Cote has stopped five of his opponents with punches and has won seven of his past eight fights.

That said, Cote is looking to make one last run before he calls it quits on a career jumpstarted by a short-notice title fight in 2004 against then-champ Tito Ortiz.

Of course, Cote will need to stay mobile against the striking specialist Thompson, who’s stopped his past two opponents in the UFC.

For more on UFC 178, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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