Shannon Ross reveals brutal journey to the UFC ahead of his debut in Perth

The usual path to UFC lately has been to dominate the local scene for a while and then finally get your shot at stardom by impressing Dana White’s Contender Series. In a way, Shannon Ross did just that.

On the other hand, he actually lost his fight against Vinicius Salvador, which denied him automatic entry into the UFC like the Australians who have gone before him, including Jack Della Maddalena and Jack Jenkins. Instead, Ross was offered a contract after blowing promotion away with his toughness in the face of defeat.

Shannon Ross is gearing up for his UFC 284 debut after a shocking injury

Ross is just days away from his full-house UFC debut in Perth as he prepares to face Kleydson Rodrigues. But it was a hard and cruel road to get to where he is today. He admitted that after years of struggling away from the limelight, he’d considered hanging up the gloves.

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However, his wife would not allow him to do so and encouraged him to keep going until he finally landed a coveted Contender fight.

“My wife is massive. She pretty much made me want to have another fight and then we got the Contender Series contract,” said an emotional Ross.

“So without her I wouldn’t be here now. My kids and them, of course that’s why I’m doing this and training hard and I really strive to be the best.”

But the televised fight, which took place in August last year, didn’t quite go according to plan.

“I didn’t know that was happening,” Ross recalled.

“I thought I was going to be extremely hungry this fight week, which is a bit strange because I’ve had this stomach ache.

“But I kept putting it in the back of my mind and just like, ‘You’re soft and you’re just hungry, don’t worry about it.’

“The day after the fight, I was shaking and convulsing in my hotel room and my trainer said, ‘That’s not hunger, that’s something else.’ So we went to the hospital and they did a CT scan of my abdomen.”

The 33-year-old soon discovered he had been battling appendicitis throughout the week of the fight.

Ross felt like he was “dying” after the Contender Series loss.

Ross entered the cage against Salvador having already ruptured his appendix. But the pair put on a brutal performance as their back-and-forth finally ended as the Brazilian finished off the Queenslander in the second round.

“I had appendicitis all fight week and then it ruptured before I actually went out,” he said.

“So I was battling a ruptured appendix, blood poisoning, and blood poisoning.”

Ross revealed how a bizarre interaction at a Las Vegas hospital led him to discover the enormity of his problems.

“We were down there with the UFC doctor from the event at the Apex and he was like, ‘Oh man that was a crazy fight – you Aussies are crazy!’ I said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about the fight, but I feel like I’m dying,'” he said.

“So he sort of paused and had me scanned and came back and said you had to have had appendicitis for four or five days to get to that stage. He was blown away.”

Ross said his manager then briefed the UFC on what happened when he was rushed into emergency surgery.

“My manager has shared with UFC staff and been in touch with them,” he said.

“I woke up after the surgery and had some missed calls from him. So I picked up the phone and he was ecstatic.

“He said he spoke to Dana and Mick (Maynard) and he told me I had the contract. I literally thought I was hallucinating!”

But the former Eternal MMA flyweight champion featured nothing as the UFC was impressed by his tenacity to go forward despite obvious pain.

“After they found out what happened, they said they came to sign me because there were no excuses all fight week,” Ross said.

“I’ve gained weight, I’ve been a total pro, so I want to see what I can do when I’m healthy.”

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