Athletes
Rafa Garcia’s Patience Is About To Pay Off
"Gifted" Talks Long Road Back Following Surgery Ahead Of Clash With Grant Dawson This Saturday At UFC Fight Night: Royval vs Taira
One day last summer during a typical practice, Rafa Garcia shot for a takedown and his leg just kind of collapsed under him. Initially, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his knee, but after a day or two, the pain subsided, and he got back into his usual routine.
He was getting ready to fight, and no little pinch behind his knee was going to keep him from preparing.
At the suggestion of his coach and mentor Cub Swanson, Garcia went to get an MRI on his knee, just to be safe.
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“I went to get the MRI and the doctor was like, ‘Your MCL is sprained, your LCL is sprained, you have no ACL — you haven’t had an ACL for years, because there is scar tissue there — and your PCL is completely torn,’” recalled Garcia, who finally makes his return to action this weekend in a critical lightweight clash with Grant Dawson on Saturday’s main card. “(The doctor said), ’You have no knee. If you keep training like this, you’re gonna need a knee replacement in the future.
“I don’t know how you’re running, how you’re doing any of the things you’re doing.’”
Garcia laughed, acknowledging that he was doing what he was doing because fighters battle through things that feel little and might actually be big all the time; it’s just part of the life.
“I didn’t feel pain,” he said with a smile. “I felt a little poke behind my knee.”
Surgery followed and the 30-year-old from Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico was forced to do something that many athletes — and innumerable everyday folks — struggle with the most: he was forced to be patient.
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“It was hard,” Garcia said with a telling laugh. "It was hard to take a break. In my head, I was like, ‘In a month I’ll be good,’ but I had a lot of restrictions.
“Having no control over what’s going on — you can’t train, you have to be on crutches; it was hard. I got through it, I had my family there helping me out with everything. My wife is a nurse, and she was extra cautious with me. Cub helped me out a lot, too; he went through the same surgery, so that made it a lot easier.”
Being sidelined is never easy, and having to incrementally work your way back when every fiber of your being is yearning to push the limits and shorten the recovery timeline is difficult in and of itself, but it’s doubly challenging when you’re sidelined just when it feels like you’re finally starting to build a little momentum.
Garcia arrived in the UFC in March 2021, filling in for Don Madge opposite Nasrat Haqparast in a fight he ultimately lost by unanimous decision. That July he made his full camp debut against Chris Gruetzemacher, suffering the same fate, going from an undefeated fighter to someone on a two-fight skid in the span of four months.
A win over Natan Levy in November got him moving in the right direction and a finish of Jesse Ronson in April 2022 brought his record level at two wins and two losses before he once again landed on the wrong side of the scorecards in tough fight against the perpetually underrated Drakkar Klose at UFC 277. But after getting back into the win column with a victory on the final card of 2022, Garcia picked up the biggest win of his career the following April, out-hustling Clay Guida in Kansas City to register a second straight victory and move to 4-1 over his previous five fights.
Right as everything was coming together, that pinch in his knee put his career on hold.
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“I feel like it’s made me stronger,” admitted Garcia, who earned wins over UFC alums Estevan Payan, Erick Gonzalez, and Humberto Bandenay in his final three bouts before signing with the promotion. “I got to work on a lot of stuff that I didn’t know I had to work on.
“You’ve gotta be patient,” he added. “You’ve gotta take things day-by-day, and just be strong mentally, because you don’t want to ruin things. In my head I was like, ‘You’ve gone so far after this surgery; don’t mess it up.”
Though he’s always had Swanson in his corner, Garcia did his camp for the fight with Guida in Denver, feeling like he needed a change of scenery and to get some different looks as he prepared to face off with “The Carpenter.” The injury made him re-think his approach a little, prompted a return to Orange County and working daily with Swanson and the burgeoning squad he’s building, which includes Dan Argueta, who also competes on Saturday’s fight card in Las Vegas.
Rafa Garcia Submits Jesse Ronson | UFC Fight Night: Luque vs Muhammad 2
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Rafa Garcia Submits Jesse Ronson | UFC Fight Night: Luque vs Muhammad 2
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For Garcia, it feels like the right decision, as his weekdays are spent fixated on fighting and grinding with his teammates, while his weekends are spent back home on the family ranch, switched off as best as he can be.
“For me, I feel like it’s very important to do that,” he said of being able to turn off that fighting focus whenever he’s back home. “If you go to a regular job, you don’t want to take all your problems from your regular job back home, right?
“Obviously, in this job, you do take some of the problems home because you’re cutting weight, you have to diet, you’ve got to run, make sure you’re recovering, but when I’m home, I’m home. I work hard the whole week, so when I’m home — I live on a ranch, so there is always stuff to do.
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“When I’m home, I’m outside with my kids, working outside, distracting myself from the fight,” he added. “When I’m home, I’m Rafa the dad, the husband, the son. My dad is my neighbor, my in-laws are my neighbors, so it’s a completely different environment."
But this week, he’s back in Las Vegas, back in the thick of it, focused on fighting and making a successful return to the Octagon in a compelling matchup with the promising Dawson.
A year ago, the American Top Team product was stationed in the Top 15 and rode a nine-fight unbeaten streak into his first headlining assignment with the promotion, and though things went about as poorly as possible against Bobby Green, Dawson has already rebounded with a unanimous decision win over Joe Solecki to get things moving in the right direction again and steady himself within the divisional hierarchy.
With a 21-2-1 record overall and as a member of the first class of graduates on Dana White’s Contender Series, the Midwest lightweight remains someone with clear upside in the lightweight ranks, and being matched up against him this weekend sends a clear message to Garcia.
“It’s exciting and it means that I‘m ready,” he said of being paired with Dawson. “I know I’m ready, the UFC knows I’m ready, and my team knows I’m ready. I’m ready to go in there and perform; go in there and get my hand raised.”
Finally on Saturday night, 453 days after surgery, all that patience, all that adherence to the recovery timeline and focus working back the right way pays off, as Garcia will once again get to cross the threshold into the Octagon, feel the canvas under his feet, and get back to doing what he loves most.
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To say Garcia is excited would be an understatement.
“This is gonna be the best night of my life,” he said, his smile growing wider and lighting up his whole face as he talked about finally making the walk again. “I haven’t fought for over a year-and-a-half, so going in there, having the best performance, getting a finish — it’s gonna be the best performance of my life and the best night of my life.
“I’m gonna be knocking on the door of the Top 15 after this.”
UFC Fight Night: Royval vs Taira took place live from UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 12, 2024. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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