Alessio Sakara Finally Comments On Why He Didn’t Fight At UFC 122

Added on Nov 29, 2010 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

Alessio Sakara is finally talking about how the days before his UFC 122 really went down. Sakara was forced to pull out from his fight at UFC 122 against Jorge Rivera at the last minute. Doctors, and Officials, decided he was to sick to fight in London. The news came out of the backstage area at UFC 122 that Sakara looked awful, and was ill. Minutes later we heard the fight was off completely.

In a video Blog he decided that he would put to rest a few of the rumors people were hearing about him. “Its been almost two weeks since what happened. I am in still in delusion over everything that happened in Germany so I decided to tell everyone what happened,” Sakara said.

He then began to break down everything that happened. “There are a few people who think I had a problem with the weigh-in and felt bad on Saturday but this is not true. Like with all my matches in the final days we prepare to lose the last seven or eight kilos and in fact for this match I was in better condition than against Thales Leites. Tuesday morning to Thursday night I had already started to feel bad but I thought it was just my body dehydrating so I thought it was normal and then on Thursday night I woke up with a strong fever… all night I could not sleep because the fever would not pass. I was feeling really sick and on Friday I was four kilos over my mark. We decided to continue with the weigh-ins despite the fever and we were hoping to recuperate by Friday afternoon.”

Fight day sounded horrible for Sakara as he retells it. “I made weight and needed to recuperate but there was one problem: because I was sick with a stomach flu my body would not recuperate, all that night I was sick with a fever and Saturday morning I was at the same weight [as the day before]. Normally by fight night by body is dehydrated and I weigh 93 to 94 kilos. Because my body was sick with the flu I could not hold down liquids to regain my weight… vomiting, fever sweating. I called the UFC medical staff and they hooked me up to an IV drip to rehydrate me. Everything was done at the last minute.”

The UFC went out of their way to help Sakara as they went above and beyond, by giving BOTH fighters their show and win money (most MMA promotions will not pay you unless you actually fight.) Sakara publicly thanked the UFC, and was very happy for the support. He continued, “I want to especially thank the UFC staff because they could see I was not at 100 per cent and they said ‘If you aren’t at 100 per cent, don’t fight. When you are at 100 per cent you can go in and get the knockout.’ on Monday I returned to Rome and I was still not 100 per cent. I went to the hospital for analysis and they think I contracted something from tuna fish as this was the only thing I ate the week before… they think it is a sickness from fish which led to a bad stomach virus. I want to say I am sorry to the people that were looking forward to this match – but please believe me, I am hurt more by this than you. This was to be my first match as ‘co-main event’ and this was also a match where many Italians came from Rome to Germany to see me.”

He was also disappointed because this was the first time he would be on broadcast TV at home. “Above everything else this was the first time for my match to be broadcast on SKY TV (in Italy) and they did a huge marketing and advertising campaign. You can’t imagine how bad I truly feel but this is just another part of my life.” He then commented on when he thought he would be back “I am waiting for February for my next match, March at the latest. I promise you I won’t eat tuna fish any more, I took a good beating from this.”

Jorge Rivera is now scheduled to fight Michael Bisping for UFC 127 in Australia, which takes place in February 2011.