Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos saw his three-fight win streak broken by Francis Ngannou at UFC on ESPN 3 last June and planned to bounce back vs. Alexander Volkov at UFC on ESPN+ 21 in Moscow on November 9, 2019. However, in late October he was hospitalized in Rio with a leg infection.
During the first few days in hospital, he planned to still fight in Russia, until on the sixth day a doctor finally impressed upon him the seriousness of the situation. The fighter was informed that "I could have lost my leg or even died" if he had taken a day or two more before going to the hospital.
"The doctor came to me and said, 'You don't understand how serious this is.' He said I was lucky to be a healthy man and that I went to the hospital soon enough. Otherwise, I could have gone straight to ICU," explained JDS to Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting. "That's when I truly understood how serious the situation was. The first thing that came to my head were my kids and my family, how fragile we are. I was feeling great, strong, happy, training for a fight... Everything going right, and all of a sudden this happens. It was a huge blow.
"I saw a movie in my head of everything I had dodged. It's hard to explain how fragile we are. I take good care of myself and that helped me, in this case, to not only support this disease but also have a good and fast recovery."
JDS now fights Curtis Blaydes in the main event of UFC on ESPN+ 24 on January 25, 2020 at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.