McCall details health scare that scrapped UFC 208 bout
Of the many strokes of misfortune that have befallen Ian McCall over the past few months, the latest stands a cut above.
The flyweight saw a date with Jarred Brooks at UFC 208 fall through hours prior to the event due to a health scare, and recently detailed the misery that ensued after he'd tipped the scales. True to the results of the event's official weigh-ins, "Uncle Creepy" made the 126-pound limit without issue, but the re-hydration process didn't go nearly as swimmingly.
"I’ve never made weight that easy in my entire career," McCall said on Joe Rogan's "Fight Companion," according to Champions.co's Jason Nawara. "You ask anybody, usually you stop drinking water 24 hours out from weigh-ins. I cut weight Thursday night and it was going so well that I had five glasses of ice water throughout the night.
"So then I figured I could eat a little bit. So I tried to eat a little bit of salad and I threw that up. But I figured that was just the dressing or something messing my stomach up. So I had at least a cup of almonds, about five cups of water, I cut the rest in the morning and then when I was trying to gain weight back my body wouldn’t. I couldn’t hold on to anything. I kept throwing up everything..."
Having seen an injury-riddled layoff extended by a run of bad luck that most wouldn't wish on their mortal enemies, McCall was valiantly willing to fight through the incessant nausea, but when he was rushed to the hospital, he was all too nonchalantly informed his retching was the least of his problems.
"I asked them, I’m like. 'Listen, just let me fight...' And they looked at me like, 'No dude, you need to go to the hospital.' Then they were gonna do emergency gallbladder surgery which they didn’t have to do thank God. This whole thing scared the s--- out of me. When the doctor says, 'Oh well you could die, you never know,' I’m like, 'what the f--- do you mean you never know?'"
Avoiding the knife proved the 32-year-old's first lucky break in over two years after seeing matchups opposite Justin Scoggins and Ray Borg fail to materialize over the past seven months, as well as two with Neil Seery.
The longtime flyweight last entered the Octagon in January 2015 at UFC 183, where he fell to John Lineker by unanimous decision.