Errol ‘The Bonecrusher’ Zimmerman’s GLORY 19 VIRGINIA fight with world heavyweight champion Rico ‘The Prince’ Verhoeven ended in the second round when he collapsed in agony moments after a misfired spin-kick attempt.
The heavy hitter was clearly in agony as doctors attended to him and he had to be aided from the ring after spending several minutes on the canvas. Backstage it quickly became apparent that the injury was severe and that it would require surgery, which he received several days later in the Netherlands.
Zimmerman is now on the mend and beginning the process of rehabilitating the injury, but the road back will be a long one.
“At first I thought it was my knee but actually it was my patella, the tendon was severed. I was at home for two months without being able to really walk anywhere, the only time I was able to get out was going to the hospital. I’ve had four surgeries on it now,” he says.
“The leg is OK now, every day is better and better. I am walking without crutches now so I think in one month I will start training again, but for boxing, not kickboxing.
“I think that I will take a year off from kickboxing and concentrate on boxing in order to give the leg time to rest and heal up properly. I want to be confident in the leg when it’s time to kickbox again.”
In the meantime he is lending his support to teammate (and former opponent) Jamal Ben Saddik (26-4, 22 KO’s) as the Belgian-Moroccan prepares for his GLORY 23 LAS VEGAS challenge against Anderson ‘Braddock’ Silva (38-11-1, 24 KO’s) of Brazil’s Team Nogueira.
“It will be a nice fight. Jamal is a very good fighter, he only needs the confidence. If he has his confidence in the right place, if he really believes in himself that he can destroy him, then he will be able to do it,” says Zimmerman.
Zimmerman’s coach and head cornerman Nicky Hemmers reveals that Zimmerman was offered a spot in a GLORY tournament to take place in November but says “we aren’t going to do that, it is too soon for that.”
“He says he will be doing boxing for a year but I don’t know, we will see. I think he is just being very careful about his leg,” he adds. “It was a real bad injury but it was good that it didn’t affect the bone or muscle. So long as it heals properly there will be no long-term problems.”
GLORY 23 LAS VEGAS takes place Friday, August 7 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and features Nieky ‘The Natural’ Holzken and Raymond ‘Real Deal’ Daniels in the main event as they dispute the vacant World Welterweight Championship.
It airs live across the US on Spike TV at 11pm ET/10pm CT.
