Neil Seery on broken rib: “It’s basically just a kick in the bollocks”

Irish MMA fans were crestfallen yesterday as an injury to one of their heroes, Neil Seery, was revealed which has forced him out of his November 8 clash with Richie Vaculik in Sydney’s Allphones Arena.

The former Cage Warriors champion explained how the accident occurred in celebrated Irish boxing trainer Paschal Collins’ Celtic Warriors facility, which the Finglas man frequents to train with a host of pugilistic champions.

Seery said: “I was over sparring in Paschal Collins’ boxing gym, Celtic Warrior, I was down on the Wednesday doing a few rounds and then I went back over on Thursday for a few more – I get great training with the lads down there.

“I did my usual warm up on the Thursday and I think there was about 20 seconds left in the first round and I felt something like a twitch. I took a body shot and then I can remember feeling something that I’ve never felt before.

“The round was finished and the bell went, I took a drink of water and went back to start the second round. I felt it again and I knew something wasn’t right. As soon as I said it one of the lads went straight down and grabbed some ice and they put a load of it on me.

“I ended up getting dressed and heading home, it wasn’t too bad, but then I ended up keeling over in pain to tell you the truth. I rang the VHI in Swords, asked them would they give me an x-ray and they said it wouldn’t be a problem.

“I ended up heading out and the doctor refused to x-ray me. They said they didn’t x-ray people. I explained that I had rang before and they said it would be done and I told them that I was in serious pain. Again, I was told it wasn’t their policy to x-ray people’s ribs.

“Then the doctor said that he could ‘tell by the way you’re breathing that they’re not broke’. I pulled him up on that but he said ‘look, you have a big bruise and you’re badly swollen’. I told him that I had to fly out to Sydney on the Sunday, that I would be fighting in two weeks and that I needed to know what was going on.

“He was fobbing me off all the time so I ended up getting charged €130 quid for nothing. I went home and I got an appointment with Beaumont Hospital on the Friday.

“So I went down and got x-rayed and straight away the girl says ‘your eighth rib is fractured’. I explained my situation to the girl again she said that the problem wasn’t with the fight, it was flying with it. If you’re going up that high you can puncture lung is what she told me. So that’s when I knew there would be no chance.”

The Ryano man claimed that his own injury pull out feels even worse than the time that Ulysses Gomez withdrew from their Cage Warriors championship bout the day before they were scheduled to fight – a bout in which many felt that a win would have propelled Seery on to the UFC’s books.

“It’s diabolical. It feels the exact same as when your man Gomez pulled out the day before our fight. It’s actually worse than that to be honest with you. I’m walking around all this week scratching my hole, I don’t know what to be doing.

“The pain is the exact same as it was on Thursday, nothing seems to have changed. With the ribs, you can’t really do anything with them – it’s not like you can’t put them in plaster. It’s basically just a kick in the bollocks. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he explained.

Seery commented on how he has extended an apology to Vaculik and how he feels like he has put some people out of their way who helped him in preparation for the bout.

“I tweeted him and apologized to him, I know how hard everybody in this game trains. The saving grace was that UFC managed to find an opponent for him so at least he wasn’t left without a fight.

“The fact that Paul was going to come over with me, a lot of people put in a lot of time with me, a lot of people have taken time off work and I had to take my own time off my full time job. It’s shit, but it’s just one of them things that I can really do nothing about,” he acknowledged.

A workaholic by anyone’s standard, Seery spoke about his lack of activity on account of the fractured rib and guaranteed he’d be back in the gym as soon as physically possible.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to mend myself up as quickly as possible so I can get back in there,” he said. “I’d dive on any card. As soon as this is even slightly recovered I’m gonna get back in the gym.

“The last two or three days I’m sitting around doing fuck all, I don’t know what to be doing with myself. I’m out of work, I’m just sitting on a chair all day. I keep asking myself the same question – what the fuck am I going to do when I’m finished fighting?

“It’s killing me. It’s just one of them things. I put a hell of a lot into this, I knew it was going to be a tough fight and I put everything into it – as I always do. It’s one of those things, what can you do?”

@PetesyCarroll