Retired Michael McDonald Has 'Zero Function' In Left Bicep After Surgery

This week, fight fans were surprised by the news that Bellator MMA bantamweight contender Michael McDonald was forced to retire from the sport at the age of 27 as a result of chronic injuries.

“Mayday” was an early bloomer in MMA. After turning pro in 2007 at the age of 16, he was signed by Zuffa-owned World Extreme Cagefighting at 19, absorbed with the rest of that organization into the Ultimate Fighting Championship at 20 and earned a shot at the interim bantamweight belt against Renan Barao shortly after his 22nd birthday.

McDonald last fought against Eduardo Dantas at Bellator 202 in July, winning by knockout. However, he has battled a long list of injuries involving his hand and wrist which kept him out of action in 2014 and 2015 and his latest hand injury, which he aggravated in the fight with Dantas, has forced him to give up the sport entirely.

McDonald had surgery to repair the hand, but was left with severe pain and impaired function in his left arm. Speaking to Luke Thomas on “The MMA Hour” this week, the Californian explained what may have gone wrong.

“I have zero function of my left bicep whatsoever,” McDonald said. “There was an issue during the surgery, and we think it was the anaesthesiologist, not the surgeon that I had, that I actually have zero ability to use my left bicep whatsoever. It’s completely dead. So, already my left arm is like half the size of my right arm. Now it’s been almost a month that I have not been able to use my left bicep whatsoever, so I can’t open a jar, I can’t get a box out of the cupboard, I lift a sheet of plywood or a cabinet. Nothing.

“I talked to my surgeon about it and he used a lot of big words and told me a lot about it,” McDonald added. “He said, ‘The way that this happened, it’s still connected, but basically it’s not coming back, it’s not waking back up.’ Now, there are different reasons that people’s muscles don’t come back after surgery, but this particular reason and how this happened is about a 1-in-8,000 chance. My surgeon is a surgeon of 20 years and he said he’s never seen it happen to any of his patients, so it’s quite a rare thing when it happened.

“The good news is all recorded cases have recovered that have been recorded in a medical journal,” McDonald concluded. “It’s not a for-sure thing that it comes back, but the odds are in my favor that it does. But just because it comes back doesn’t mean it’s not a huge burden on my life. They said on average it can take up to six months to come back, so literally not being able to use your arm for six months, that kinda sucks.”