Canadian fighter Jason Saggo makes comeback from injury on big UFC card

TORONTO – It’s a video that’s hard to forget. Canadian lightweight Jason Saggo was sparring at his gym last March when suddenly he pulled up and fell down, clutching his left leg.

“What was that,” he says in obvious pain. “Was that my ankle?”

It was a ruptured Achilles tendon that led to surgery and a long, painful recovery.

On Saturday, the 30-year-old from Charlottetown, by way of Bolton, Ont., steps back into the cage to face American Justin (J-Bomb) Salas on the undercard of UFC 196. Featherweight champion (The Notorious) Conor McGregor, moving up two weight classes, faces Nate Diaz in the main event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Saggo (10-2-0) is looking forward to watching McGregor in action. And fighting himself.

“It’s been far too long,” said Saggo.

Saggo, who won his UFC debut with a first-round stoppage of Josh Shockley at UFC 174 in June 2014 in Vancouver, has not fought since October 2014 when he lost a split decision to Paul (The Irish Dragon) Felder in Halifax.

He was training for a card in Poland when his Achilles snapped.

“It feels like somebody has a bat and they hit you from behind,” he said. “It sounds like a shotgun going off or like a balloon exploding … At the time I had no idea (what it was), just a surging pain at the back of my leg. You feel your calf muscle kind of rolling up. It was quite painful at the time.”

It was all captured via a camera in the gym.

“It was a complete freak accident,” he added. “It actually comes from years and years of training before — like box jumps and stuff and putting a lot of stress on the Achilles tendon.”

Surgery was followed by two weeks in bed, then wearing a moon boot and a slow process to get back to doing normal every-day things, let alone fighting in a cage.

“I just didn’t want to push it, because actually you can re-rupture it just as easily.”

Saggo, who credits girlfriend Rachel and his fight team for helping keep him positive, used the time off to re-evaluate and up his game.

“Conor McGregor always talks about being injured is not only a process of recovery, it’s a process of discovery … I feel like (now) I’m the best martial artist I’ve ever been.”

He believes he put too much pressure on himself last time out in the Felder loss, while he had more fun in his UFC debut. He looks to stay loose this time.

“You’ve got to enjoy the process. Because if you’re not enjoying it then what’s the point of doing it?” he said.

Salas (12-6-0) is also returning from a long layoff. He last fought in July 2014 when he was stopped in the second round by Joe Proctor.

A native of Bolton, Saggo moved to P.E.I. to follow coach Paul Abel.

Travel is nothing new to Saggo.

After studying philosophy and psychology at the University of Guelph, he went to Thailand to study Muay Thai. After winning his first fight, he drove his motorcycle 5,000 kilometres across Thailand.

In 2008, he competed in an international grappling tournament in the Philippines. From there, it was on to Brazil to study Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In 2010, Jason travelled to Japan to train with Kid Yamamoto. The next year, he went to Hawaii to work with B.J. Penn’s camp.

He has also studied yoga in India.

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