Having been forced to pull out of last weekend’s Bellator 172 at the eleventh hour due to a kidney stone, Matt Mitrione has revealed he will have surgery to remove the remaining stones on Wednesday.
“Meathead,” who was set to welcome heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko to the promotion Saturday night, appeared on The MMA Hour on Monday night to further discuss his ongoing issues. He would disclose that he has a further ‘six or seven’ stones in his right kidney and will be entering surgery on Wednesday to resolve the issue after passing the original stone at the airport.
JUST PEE'D OUT THE STONE IN THE DALLAS AIRPORT! Thank you @BellatorMMA and #Fedor for support. Sincere thank you to all my fans. Love y'all.
— Matt Mitrione (@mattmitrione) February 19, 2017
“I have six or seven stones in my right kidney right now, and I don’t have any in my left. I don’t know what that’s the case. I’m going to the doctor on Wednesday, a surgeon named Dr. Amy Krambeck in Indianapolis,” said former NFL player Mitrione.
When discussing how the invasive procedure would take place, Mitrione pulled no punches when he revealed the surgeons will access his kidneys ‘straight through his pee hole’ and that he will have to be fitted with a catheter during his initial recovery period.
Mitrione became ‘worse and worse’ following weigh-ins
When talking about the timeline of events that led to the cancellation of Saturday’s hotly anticipated main event, Mitrione makes it very clear that he tried everything in his power to make it to the cage in San Jose, California.
“It really started to kick in on Friday, and I didn’t know if I got sick all of a sudden, just what the problem was, but it kept magnifying and amplifying. It got to the point where I was absolutely miserable,” said the 38-year-old.
“At weigh-ins, I had to put on a show and be like, ‘hey, I look good,’ because I don’t want Fedor to see this puking, doubled-over-in-agony kind of guy. It just was really difficult, and then it just kept getting worse.”
On the day of the fight, Mitrione’s woes continued leaving the fighter in pain and discomfort. This lead Bellator to make an important decision that put the welfare of Mitrione first rather than the vast sum the cancellation would cost the promotion.
“On Saturday, Bellator was like, ‘look dude, we have to go to the hospital, this thing isn’t right, something’s going on.’ We went to the hospital, told them what’s going on. They said, ‘look, it’s probably kidney stones.’ They hooked me to my IVs to try to flush it out, and then they gave me a CT scan to see what was really going on, and that’s when they saw the stone. The stone hadn’t even passed.”
Mitrione admits he ‘owes fans and Fedor a fight’ after costing Bellator
Ex-UFC heavyweight Mitrione is aware that this has cost Bellator ‘millions of dollars’ and has vowed to get back in the cage to face “The Last Emperor” as soon as he is able.
“This kidney stone that came out of nowhere cost Bellator millions of dollars, it cost the fight world an incredible fight that I believe that everybody wanted to see, excited about and really hyped,” added Mitrione.
“I owe the fans a fight, I owe Fedor a fight, Fedor and I owe the fans a fight and I am going to get it taken care of, and it sucks that I am going to have a medal rod stuffed in me pee hole to get this thing taken care of so it never happens again, but I can at least eliminate this from any concern that will ever come up again.”
Bellator is reportedly planning to reschedule the marquee bout for May or June of this year.
