It has been a turbulent time for Kai Kara-France.
The former interim title challenger will return from to the octagon against Steve Erceg in the co-main event of UFC 305, on a card which will also see his teammate Israel Adesanya look to reclaim the Middleweight title against Dricus Du Plessis in the main event.
Ahead of his return, the 31-year-old sat down with the media to talk all about his long-awaited return following an extensive time on the sidelines due to concussion. ‘Dontblink’ detailed his road to recovery and revealed that in his initial testing, he was scoring extremely low on the neurology testing. He said:
“So, with a brain injury, obviously, we only have one. So, you want to make sure that you're doing everything you can, and that means not pushing too much. So every week, just doing enough, which was at the start just going for walks. That was what I was prescribed by the neurologist, the concussion specialist, and then from there, we could do a little bit more. Add a bit more stress, a bit more tension to my routine. Doing all these different balance tests and eye tests.
“With the neurologist, it felt like an exam. I had like a three hour exam that I had to go through. Like puzzles and memory tests and drawing tests. And it's not to see how good you are at drawing, it's to see how well you are at multitasking and at the start my test wasn't actually that good.
“I was getting like 50% for my age and education and all of that stuff. Then four months later or five months later, I did that same test and I was testing at like 98% for my age and my education. So it just goes to show that I was always going to heal, I just had to give it time.
“That's what you want around you, that that kind of confidence and that kind of pathway back to sport.”
Kara-France will make his return Erceg, a man who despite not getting his hand raise, put on an incredible display champion Alexandr Pantoja last time out. Assessing the Flyweight division, the New Zealand man believes a big with for any Flyweight contender could put them in line for a title shot next.
“(It’s a) funny time for Flyweights, especially as contenders because it's wide open. Anyone could beat anyone and anyone can get a title shot. So when I told my coach, Eugene and my manager, Ash, I want to fight on this Perth card, Steve's name came across the table, went straight away, we knew this was the fight to take. We want to fight the guys that just fought for the belt. That's how to get back to fighting for a world title, is (to) take him out in his hometown. Look, whoever is the champ when it's time to go, that's the clear pathway. But all our focus right now is obviously (on) Steve, that's who's in front of me. So it's naive to look past him and I know that I've been around for a while, that that's all my energy is being put into.”
