Veteran MMA fighter Jack Jenkins has now been hospitalized with a throat injury as the result of a rear-naked choke that he was caught in at UFC 312 on February 8th, 2025. Jenkins has a ton of experience in the sport and he built up a 9-2 professional record on the regional MMA circuit in Australia before winning on Dana White’s Contender Series and earning a contract with the promotion back in 2022. He has gone 3-1 in the UFC prior to his appearance on the weekend and he was coming into that fight off an impressive knockout win over fellow popular veteran Herbert Burns.
The fight against Gabriel Santos at UFC 312 was going very well to begin with, and Jenkins even dropped his opponent in the first round. He wasn’t able to continue that success throughout the fight unfortunately, as Santos started to come into his own in the later rounds. Santos was eventually able to find the finish in the third and final round, locking up a rear-naked choke after around two minutes of action. It was a particularly brutal finish, as Santos set it up with strikes from the top and sunk his arm around Jenkin’s neck while he was face down before pulling him back into it with a gable-grip.
After initial reports surfaced that Jenkins had been hospitalized with a throat injury after that rear-naked choke, MMAFighting was able to confirm the whole story. Jenkins was apparently taken to the hospital for his standard post-fight medicals and was discharged, but he was readmitted later on. The medical team discovered that Jenkins had suffered fractured cartilage in his thyroid and he was held under medical supervision over the weekend before eventually being released on Monday. Jenkins’ team reportedly believes that the injury was actually caused earlier in the fight, as he told his corner he was feeling numbness and a loss of strength in his arm after the first round.
