![]() We remember when Ki-Jana Carter of Penn State University was drafted No. We remember when Jamal Anderson of the Atlanta Falcons was never quite the same after ACL surgery. Men of a certain age remember a time when a violent buckling of the ACL derailed the career of Terrell Davis, culminating in his retirement at just 29 years old (yeah, the military-saluting Terrell Davis who was once voted MVP of the NFL, rushed for 2,000 yards in a season and led the Denver Broncos to two Super Bowl titles). Yet the doomsday stereotype among fans, largely unjustified by present-day statistics, continues to cast a large shadow because the sports landscape HAD BEEN littered with some very high-profile ACL horror stories dating to more than a decade ago. ![]() National results show a 96 to 98 percent return to sport.” “Now with arthroscopic surgery and proper strengthening and rehabilitation techniques, the future is much brighter. “It used to end athletic participation both on the professional and recreational level,” Souryal said of ACL tears. Tarek Souryal, head team physician for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, spelled out that overwhelmingly positive trend during an interview with ESPN’s “Training Room.” In fact, over the past seven years or so the odds of a full recovery have heavily shifted in the athletes’ favor. And the present reality is this: An ACL reconstruction today is usually not career-threatening or career-altering to a pro athlete. But where ACLs are concerned, it is well past the time for popular perception to catch up with reality. When the three most dreaded letters in sports strike again – sidelining an astonishing 100,000 or more American athletes each year – the popular knee-jerk reaction of “Will he ever be the same again?” assumes that full recovery boils down to a coin toss of sorts. It will come as no comfort to Cruz, one of the sport’s most mentally stout and sincere figures, that his extended misery is not the norm. “It is like you get dumped by a girl that you love very much or you lost a family member,” Cruz said on the show.Ĭruz choked up during the broadcast while recalling the outpouring of support from fans on his Twitter account the fans out there could know how much that helps me,” Cruz said. He pivoted, mildly he thought, and heard a pop.įar worse than the physical pain has been the emotional toll. Better to get it done now and just get over with.”Ĭruz said on UFC Tonight (FUEL TV) Tuesday night that he reinjured the knee during light shadow boxing sessions with a teammate. From what the doctor said, the cadaver has a 20 percent failure rate in an athlete. “He had an MRI recently and it revealed the ligament was basically detached. “He’s over the shock part,” Cruz’s head trainer, Eric DelFierro, said Tuesday. ![]() A rough timetable for his recovery has been set at six to nine months, standard within the industry. Last Thursday, however, Cruz underwent his second ACL surgery in 8 months (on the same knee). The 27-year-old San Diegan had hoped to battle interim champ Renan Barao early next year. In the case of Cruz, most unfortunately, his return to championship form was recently interrupted after another gut-wrenching setback. And we’ve thought about former light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who has endured and defiantly bounced back from three ACL tears, and battles Sweden’s Alexander Gustafsson = in the co-main event on Saturday’s UFC on FOX 5 card. We speculated again when bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz ruptured an ACL during a training session in May. We wondered that when UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre blew out his knee last year. You ask - we all instinctively ask - the most obvious question: Will he ever be the same again? The uncertainty that races through their mind jumps to ours as well. We immediately empathize with the limping wounded, of course. How many times a year do you come across that headline? It seems to be one of the most common headlines in sports, year after year. (Insert name of pro athlete ) Tears ACL, Out For Season.
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