TUF 13 Finale: Tim Credeur and His New Lease On Life After Brain Tumor Scare

Tim Credeur at the TUF 13 Finale weigh-in

It’s been 21 months since TUF 13 Finale participant Tim Credeur last saw the inside of the UFC’s Octagon. In his last time there, he fought a grizzly MMA veteran in Nate Quarry to a three-round decision, losing unanimously in the eyes of the judges.

Though the contest with Quarry may have been hard, it wasn’t the toughest fight he dealt with since then.

Shortly before Credeur was to fight Tom Lawlor at UFC 113: Machida vs. Shogun 2, the TUF Season 7 alum made a visit to his physician and was handed some difficult news. What they told him was that there was a possibility of the mixed martial artist having a brain tumor or aneurism, forcing the necessity for more testing in order to absolutely determine what the abnormality in his head was.

The next thing you know, cage fighting seems like a walk in the park, in comparison.

Imagine knowing everything you’ve worked for up until this point can come to a screeching halt, putting a damper on the career you love. Beyond that, there’s the family aspect. How do you tell your loved ones? What will happen to them if you’re not around to take care of them?

These were all questions that went through the UFC middleweight’s head as he took that very long walk from the doctor’s office to his car.

“It was very difficult,” Credeur told MMAWeekly Radio. “Just being in a position of uncertainty and being in a position where I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, how everything was going to go down, just for my family.”

As if the news that he may have a life-threatening condition wasn’t enough, Credeur was given some even more breathtaking information. Shortly after his appointment with his physician, he received a call from his wife. What she told him put him through one of the most up-and-down half hours of his life.

Tim Credeur found out he was going to be a daddy.

“What a lot of people don’t know is when the doctor told me that there can be a possible brain tumor or aneurism, I’m thinking, like, how am I going to tell my wife? What am I going to say?” he recalled. “She called me and told me that she was pregnant with our first baby, which is, wow, that’s a tough 20 or 30 minutes; to hear something so devastating and then here’s something so exciting. So, it was refreshing to hear that I was going to have a baby, but scary at the same time. Because, man, am I going to be here for the baby?”

Luckily, further testing discovered that Credeur’s condition wasn’t as threatening as originally anticipated.

“Over time, though, we found out that everything was fine,” he said. “I was going to be okay and we have a beautiful, healthy baby girl now. I went through some adversity, but going through adversity is what builds character and is what makes a man better, in my opinion.”

Being through such an experience can open one’s eyes to all sorts of things. What one finds is the ability to tell the difference between things that are important and things that are trivial or easily shrugged off. It’s a valuable life lesson that’s not easily forgotten.

Having the notion that you might not be on this Earth to see your kids grow up is a genuine slap in the face by reality. Credeur can now tell you what the most important things in his life are and feels more fortunate than ever.

“It really puts things in perspective,” he said. “Everything you think is important kind of falls to the wayside and it gives you an opportunity to figure out what you really want out of life and what’s really important to you. I believe things happen for a reason and I think there’s a huge reason behind that I’m just thankful to make it out okay. A lot of people make it out of this situation in a lot worse shape than I did, so I’m lucky.”

With a new lease on life, Credeur is back and prepares to fight Ed Herman Saturday night at the TUF 13 Finale in Las Vegas. The emotion has gone from sorrow and uncertainty to anticipation and excitement similar to when a fighter gets his first shot in the UFC.

He may have lost his last fight in the Octagon, but Tim Credeur won his fight for life. To him, dreams have become a reality.

“Finding out you’re not going to be able to do what you love to do is very difficult,” he explained. “Having the opportunity to get in the cage again and complete against another tough opponent is a dream come true.

“Feels like my first fight in the UFC again.”

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Erik Fontanez is a staff writer for MMAWeekly.com.
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