Rafael dos Anjos is finally lined up for his UFC 332 rematch with Alexander Hernandez, but the old lightweight king just revealed the ugly medical road that got him there. This was not a simple ice-the-knee-and-get-back-to-sparring situation. RDA says he went through three knee surgeries after his October 2024 loss to Geoff Neal, with one doctor mistake turning the whole thing into a two-year grind.
Dos Anjos has not fought since UFC 308, where he suffered a first-round TKO loss to Neal after his knee gave out in Abu Dhabi. At 41, with a former UFC lightweight title reign, big-name wins, welterweight detours, old injury drama before the Conor McGregor fight, and a ridiculous amount of cage mileage behind him, that kind of injury can start sounding like the final bell. Instead, RDA is trying to walk back into the fire against Hernandez on Oct. 3.
In a video clip shared Wednesday, dos Anjos laid out how the injury spiraled from one bad night into a mess of follow-up procedures. Watch the clip below.
Rafael dos Anjos reveals he’s undergone three surgeries since his last UFC appearance in October of 2024:
“I had three surgeries back-to-back. After the Geoff Neal fight, I had meniscus surgery, and the doctor in Brazil made a mistake. He actually tried to stitch up my meniscus,… pic.twitter.com/m69MVGqzRO
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) August 26, 2026
RDA Says One Surgery Led To Another
Dos Anjos said the first procedure came after the Geoff Neal fight, when his meniscus became the problem. His explanation was blunt enough to make every veteran fighter in the room wince.
“I had three surgeries back-to-back. After the Geoff Neal fight, I had meniscus surgery, and the doctor in Brazil made a mistake. He actually tried to stitch up my meniscus, which was a terrible mistake.”
According to dos Anjos, the repair did not hold. He said the meniscus tore again four or five months later, forcing him into another operation, and then another issue popped up when he was trying to recover in Austin, Texas.
“Four or five months after the surgery, my meniscus tore again, so I had to redo it. I had to have the meniscus removed, and the doctor here in Austin, Texas, left a couple of stitches inside my knee, believe it or not.”
That second twist is the kind of thing that makes a comeback camp feel cursed. Dos Anjos said the leftover stitches caused inflammation and kept him from getting full extension in the knee, which pushed him into a third surgery at the start of 2026.
“It was causing inflammation. I couldn’t get full extension, and then I had surgery for the third time at the beginning of this year.”
There was also the obvious mental battle. Dos Anjos admitted he briefly wondered whether the Neal fight would be the end of his career, especially after the repeat trips under the knife. Still, he said the pull of the gym and the contract in front of him kept winning the argument.
“For a second, I thought, ‘Man, this is it,’ but I don’t know, something inside of me that always tells me keep on going. I don’t feel like this is it yet. I want to fight a couple more times.”
“I still have four more fights on my contract. I’m passionate to be in the gym. I like to train, and I want to keep sparring people and keep fighting.”
Dos Anjos also stressed that his recent losses did not feel like complete competitive collapses.
“I’m coming from losses, but I haven’t been dominated. There were tough losses, but I want to give it a chance.”
He also said he still has four fights left on his UFC deal, which explains why this Hernandez rematch matters beyond nostalgia. RDA is not just showing up for a farewell lap. He is trying to prove there is still enough bite left in those legs to beat a dangerous lightweight who already owns a buzzer-beating knockout over Chase Hooper and has no reason to play nice with a legend.
The matchup also brings the story full circle in a nasty little way. Hernandez stunned dos Anjos in 2018, then RDA answered back with an arm-triangle choke in 2019. Now they meet again at UFC 332 with dos Anjos trying to show the knee held up, the surgeries are behind him, and this veteran run still has one more banger left in it.
