The Pact by Cody Garbrandt

Author:Cody Garbrandt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

As I made my way back to the locker room after the Kessinger fight, I felt a throbbing behind the knuckles in my right hand. I grabbed it with my left hand just to see if I could feel what was wrong, and a sharp pain shot all the way up my arm.

By the time we got to the locker room, the pain was so bad I couldn’t pull my glove off. I noticed some blood seeping out from underneath it. Uncle Bob cut the glove loose from the palm side, and when I turned my hand back over, we all saw it—a bone in the center of the top of my hand had broken right through my skin.

I’d hit Kessinger so hard, I broke my right hand.

Compound hand fractures are no joke. They don’t fix easily. That break required surgery, and the surgeon had to put a metal plate in my hand just so it could heal. I wouldn’t be able to fight again for months. And even if I made a full recovery, the doctor told me, there was a chance my hand would never be as strong as it once was. I would have to be “cautious,” and cautious is the last thing any great fighter can be.

Any warrior knows that going into battle requires no fear—of death or anything else. Walking into the octagon with a fear that part of your body won’t perform the way you need it to perform could mean a quick end to a career that had barely begun.

That doctor’s words took the wind right out of me.

Just like that, all of the momentum I felt, the rush I felt, the excitement of knowing that I’d won my professional debut and was on my way to getting a shot at the UFC—all of that positive energy left my body. I felt like I’d taken a huge step backward. Not only would this mean I’d be months away from my next fight, it also opened the possibility that I might never be as good as I wanted to be. I knew that the mental fight it would take to get that “cautious” warning out of my head would be harder than the actual healing process my bones would have to go through.

I suddenly felt a huge void—the emptiness of doubt.

And what set in next? What filled up that void? What took the place of all of that momentum I’d gained?

Frustration.

Everyone around me was really worried. I could see it in their eyes. I could hear it in the way they spoke to me, trying to stay positive and not say anything negative around me. They all knew how hard I had worked, and they knew that I wanted to be better right now. And given my past history, they probably wondered if I was going to do something reckless.

But despite my frustration, I was starting to see things a little more clearly. I had learned a thing or two since my last injury. The knife fight at Tammie’s had led me directly to Maddux.

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