Carlos Condit Recovering After Serious Hand Injury

UFC welterweight Carlos Condit has mostly been off the radar since pulling out of his UFC 108 fight with Paul Daley.  He now reveals that the "injury" was actually a very serious staph infection that he contracted after slicing open his hand on some scrap metal in his garage.  MMA Junkie has the report along with an update from Condit on his recovery:

"I went to toss it in my junk pile, and it freakin' sliced my finger," he said. "It sliced a couple of my fingers pretty good."

He immediately went to an urgent-care facility and got the cut stitched up. It hurt — he'd never had as deep a cut — but the wound wasn't going to change his plans.

"But the next day, my hand started swelling up," Condit said. "It was really stiff and painful."

"I realized I wasn't going to be able to fight if my hand was jacked and didn't move," he said.

Three days later, he saw a hand specialist who rushed him into surgery when it was discovered one of the tendons in his hand was severely infected with staph.

After the surgery, Condit spent six weeks on IV antibiotics with a large needle (called a PICC line) stuck in his arm at all times. He couldn't lift weights, grapple, or hit anything. Otherwise, he was told, his blood might clot and block the flow of drugs.

Kicking the bag and running were it.

Condit's thoughts on Paul Daley and the status of his recovery are after the jump...

Condit also had some choice words for rising welterweight knockout artist Paul Daley, who intimated that Condit pulled out of their UFC 108 bout because he was scared of fighting Daley:

"I was pissed, man," he said. "I'm not a pussy. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm not a pussy. You can say whatever you want about me, but I'm a tough dude, and I never back down."

"I just need to focus on getting back and coming back 100 percent," he said. "I will get a chance to fight Paul Daley. Mark my words. It's a small world; we will fight. So I'm not too worried about that. So with whoever they put in front of me, I'm hoping to get a chance to show Daley how much of a (supposed) pussy I am."

The "Natural Born Killer" added that he'll return to the gym at Greg Jackson's in New Mexico this week to assess the feasibility of training with the IV freshly removed from his arm.  He hopes to return to action before the start of the summer, but that may be a bit too optimistic given that he's only just now regained use of his arm.  Condit was just starting to build momentum with his controversial win over Jake Ellenberger and many fans were looking forward to proposed bouts with Chris Lytle and Daley, both of which fell through due to injuries.  Once Condit is back to full-strength and gets back in the Octagon, we'll see if he can truly translate the success he found at 170 in the WEC, in the UFC's much more competitive welterweight division.