Elite grappler and Japanese MMA legend Satoshi Ishii has recently had to undergo emergency surgery, and he’s now shared an update with his fans. Ishii started out his combat sports career as a Judo competitor in his childhood and he steadily worked his way up the ranks, winning both the Junior Asian and World Championships as a teenager. He found success competing at the very highest level of that sport too, with his crowning achievement being a gold medal from the Olympics in 2008. He wasted no time after that though, and he made the transition to professional MMA in a little over a year.
Although he lost his debut, Ishii improved and became one of the top heavyweight fighters in Japan over the next few years. He fought for RIZIN FF, the PFL, and Bellator over the course of his career and has had dozens of fights in multiple different countries. Ishii has even competed in a wide range of different disciplines alongside his MMA career, facing experienced opponents in boxing matches, kickboxing matches, and submission grappling matches too. He became a popular name in grappling too, thanks to his exciting stand-up style and solid performances on the biggest stages like Metamoris and Quintet.
The news that Satoshi Ishii has had to have emergency surgery just goes to show that anything can happen even if someone is in top physical condition. He revealed that he had an infection in his spine that eventually led to sepsis, which required him to have three surgeries in the space of just two weeks. Thankfully Ishii has come out of the other side of this rough period and he’s now on the road to recovery. He’ll now be working on rehab and getting regular bloodwork and MRIs to make sure that he recovers fully, so fans will likely have to wait quite some time before potentially seeing him return to action.
Satoshi Ishii shared an update on his health after recently undergoing emergency surgery in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
