UFC NEWS: Mike Brown suffered hand injury in loss to Rani Yahya, undergoing surgery

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The new year has not been kind to former WEC Featherweight Champion Mike Thomas Brown. A decision loss to Diego Nunes in his return to the UFC on New Year's Day was compounded by a second consecutive loss to Rani Yahya last weekend at UFC Fight for the Troops 2, and now Brown has suffered an injury out of that fight that will require surgery.

Brown, who has now lost four of his last six fights, took the bout with Yahya on short notice as a late replacement, but was out-worked throughout the fight and lost a unanimous decision. And in that fight, Brown says, he suffered an injury to his right hand.

"Thanks for the continued support," Brown wrote on his official Facebook page. "Wanted to let everyone know that I'm doing fine, but I tore a radial cruciate ligament in my left hand in the first round of the fight. Surgery tomorrow, a crazy month for sure."

Brown didn't mention a timetable on his return, but with consecutive losses he could be at risk of getting cut from the UFC.

Penick's Analysis: It's been an unfortunate and precipitous drop for Brown. Starting with the loss to Jose Aldo late in 2009, Brown has struggled. Though he's picked up two wins since then, his knockout loss to Gamburyan and the consecutive decision losses in his return to the UFC have been disappointing at best, and could lead to the former Champion's dismissal from the UFC. But hopefully he can take this recovery time from hand surgery and get things turned around for himself when he gets back in the cage.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_8270.shtml

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