Kevin Lee To Miss A Few Months Due To ACL Surgery

It appears as though we will not be seeing Kevin Lee for a while. The 27-year-old told ESPN that he will be put under the knife and won’t be ready to fight for at least six months.

Lee (18-6) will get the surgery to repair an issue with his ACL, which took a while for him to get looked at. Lee told Luke Thomas on SiriusXM that he has a tear in his ACL. It appears the fix is a long time coming.

“Honestly, not even doing anything that was totally out of the ordinary,” Lee said. “I mean, I’m not going to say specifically how it happened because of insurance, you know. But, it wasn’t something totally out of the ordinary. I think I may have been affected by this whole virus and s— more than I think. For some reason, I’ve been overly fatigued and my body isn’t feeling great. I zigged when I should have zagged and heard a pop pretty loud. Since then I’m unable to move it much.”

Ranked in the top ten of the UFC’s lightweight rankings, Lee has had a busy few years. After losing to Tony Ferguson for the interim UFC Lightweight Title at UFC 216 in 2017, Lee has gone 2-3 in his last five fights. Fighting at welterweight for the first time, Lee lost to Rafael dos Anjos via submission to start 2019. He then returned to lightweight, beating Gregor Gillespie via KO at UFC 244.

Lee’s last fight was a loss to Charles Oliveira back in March via submission. The timing of it all, plus the break in events, comes with the idea this is a long time coming.

“I didn’t mean it like this, but the world works in mysterious ways,” Lee went on to say. “At this point, it is what it is. I kind of wanted the break anyway. Now it’s seriously forcing me to take it.”