Ryan Hall has been plagued with injuries in the past year.
Hall (9-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) hasn’t competed since a December 2021 win over Darrick Minner, but the jiu-jitsu wizard says he’s just had a string of bad luck ever since.
According to Hall, he’s gone under the knife 16 times to repair all sorts of injuries, including a torn ACL.
“It’s a bit of a saga,” Hall told MMA Junkie. “I spent about 10 years not being injured, then I just got a couple of bad luck (injuries), like getting fallen on a couple of times. (I) tore a hip flexor really badly prior to my first fight in 2021, and had a really, really bad tear in the bottom of my foot. So a lot of things started to add up. I broke my hand in that first fight in 2021, had that fight in December, and then went into the next year.
“I was going to do ADCC, going to do some competitions, and I had actually just agreed to a fight in August of 2022, but unfortunately got fallen on, tore my ACL, tore my meniscus and it’s been 16 surgeries since. But we’re on the back end of it, and I just had one on Tuesday, but it’s fortunately going in the right direction. I’m looking forward to being back healthy, feeling better than I have in a very, very long time, and looking forward to competing again soon.”
Hall, who challenges Ashley Williams for the lightweight title in the Polaris 24 headliner on June 3, will use the grappling match opportunity to gauge where he’s at physically. He hopes to be back in the octagon by fall.
“MMA is all I care about,” Hall said. “I want to come back and I want to continue. I spent years being in the rankings and got dropped for inactivity because of bad luck and people not being willing to fight. I had a bad luck loss and could have done some things better. But breaking your hand, getting head-butted, having all sorts of injuries before the fight – that was frustrating. But I managed to end 2021 on a good note, and I just want to get back to pushing forward and growing and learning and moving back to fighting the best guys I can.
“My hope is to compete around, realistically, August-September and then try and get in two this year.”
Previously ranked in the UFC’s top 15 at featherweight, Hall wants an opponent who will get him right back where he was. A rematch with the lone man to beat him in the octagon, Ilia Topuria, is on his mind, but he sees Bryce Mitchell as a more realistic option.
“I would of course want a rematch with Ilia Topuria,” Hall said. “Obviously he’s been doing very well, so that would be a little bit of a ways away. But in the meantime, I would love to compete against somebody like Bryce Mitchell, who’s a very good fighter (or) other people like that – anybody that would push me forward and be a big challenge and all of those people would.”
