Mike Wilkinson is an 8-1 featherweight from Wigan, England. Currently signed to the UFC and sponsored by Revgear, Mike is a true gentleman and a great representative of the sport of MMA. His last training camp was cut short just a week before he was scheduled to face Jimmy Hettes at UFC Fight night 30. In his first post for fightstorepro.com, Mike reflects on the camp and how the injury occured.
"Camp started great training was going well weight was good and everything was looking great, but 3 weeks into training I injured my wrist pretty bad. I had no movement and basically couldn't use it but there was no chance on earth I was pulling out so I had a cortisone injection to numb the pain which took a week to kick in. However there was still a little pain and by this time my coach Darren Morris had taken me over to his other fighting team in Spain (SAAD.) At that gym there are some great fighters and one of those is Jose Antonio Aragon Cruz who has the same style as Jimmy Hettes so that was one of the reasons for going, training in Spain was great and I improved so much.
Back in England we cracked on with training and brought Jose over with us as his style was making me more prepared for Jimmy.
Due to my wrist I couldn't do upper body strength and conditioning so I was training a lot on my legs which, looking back, was doing too much. Then again, as other fighters will agree, when you're coming up to a fight you don't wanna leave no stones unturned.
I was asked to be on the UFC's 'Beyond the Octagon'. I was made up so much to even be asked and to represent the UFC for the Manchester event. On the day I was on Beyond the Octagon my grandmother passed away which was very hard for me but I stayed focused and continued with my training schedule and the job ahead.
Just over a week till fight time and training had been going well, I had only a few hard sessions left. During sparring I got thrown but somehow my leg got stuck, so my body was moving from the throw but my leg was static. This stretched my hamstring very painfully and at that point is when the injury occurred, which I can only put it down to all them leg strength sessions which had made my hamstrings tight, due to the injury my coach and I knew that I couldn't get better within the week so he pulled me out.
By Mike Wilkinson
Mike is now on his way to recovery and looking forward to getting back in the octagon. An exciting featherweight that starred in TUF: The smashes, fightstorepro hopes Mike will have a fantastic 2014. Grab the gear he's wearing at fightstorepro.com