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Aspen Ladd was set for her UFC return this weekend in her scheduled fight against Sara McMann. However, in the lead-up to the fight, the forme revealed that she had suffered a torn ACL and MCL.
The injury forced Ladd out of this weekend's fight and will also keep her out of Octagon action for a long period of time. While speaking to MMA Junkie in a recent interview, Ladd detailed her injury and claimed that she was hoping to battle through the injury.
“It was my last hard day of training, last sparring session. It was a wrestling-type situation and then just my foot got caught and the rest of my body turned, heard a loud pop. That was a week before I got diagnosed with what it was. So during that week, I had still planned to fight. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt, but it was like, ‘Eh, my weight is really good, it just hurts, I can work through this,’ and that was the plan.”
Having lost her first pro fight to Germaine de Randamie last July, Aspen Ladd bounced back with a third-round finish of Yana Kunitskaya at UFC on ESPN 7 last December, in what would definitely go down as an iconic KO finish.
Ladd further revealed her plans upon her return, claiming that once she is cleared to fight, she won't be wasting any time and won't be taking any long breaks of four or five months.
“I want to fight as soon as I possibly can and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to do that,” Ladd said. “But right now it’s figuring out what the course of action in as far as how to address the injury and come back from it as soon as possible. When I do get back, and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later, I want to line them up. No more breaks, no more five, four months. I want to just go.”
Aspen Ladd lastly claimed that she is open to fighting in both the 135 and 145 divisions and wouldn't mind competing under both banners.
“The end of the road is the same in both divisions and a lot of the 35ers, if you just take out the water cut, (are) natural 45’s. I would have no problem fighting both divisions.”
When could we expect Aspen Ladd to return?
Aspen Ladd is definitely not fighting in 2020 again. We could see her compete next year, even though an ACL and MCL tear takes a lot of time to usually recover. We wish her a speedy recovery.
