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UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou unexpectedly wrestled his way to victory against Ciryl Gane at UFC 270 earlier this year. The departure from his trademark knockouts was partially a consequence of serious knee injuries Ngannou suffered during training camp.

Ngannou did not reveal the severity of his knee injuries until after defeating Gane in the main event in January. Ngannou successfully underwent surgery in March to repair a Grade 3 MCL tear and ACL damage suffered one month before the Gane fight. It turns out the pay-per-view event was in jeopardy. Ngannou's injuries were so significant that he was advised to step away from the fight or risk endangering his entire career, according to his coach Eric Nicksick.

"Every one of us felt that he should pull out of the fight," Nicksick, head coach at Xtreme Couture MMA, told "Morning Kombat" last week. "We're literally walking around with an NFL lineman's knee brace for four weeks.

"I'm freaking in tears because here we are: we put this whole camp together, we're ready to go and we're a week away. We don't understand if we're going to fight or not. The doctor basically calls and says, 'He can have irreversible knee damage if he decides to take this fight.'"

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Nicksick and his team met with Ngannou at the UFC Performance Institute to go over their options. After relaying the doctor's concerns to Ngannou, the team decided to test just how compromised the UFC heavyweight champion's leg was. They opted to spar without the knee brace to test Ngannou's stability.

"He goes in and spars and it was the best I've ever f--ing seen him," Nicksick said. "He drops this guy two or three times. I look over at [another coach] like, 'Well, what do I say now? Look at him! He looks fine.'"

The team agreed that Ngannou would meet with their doctor on the Tuesday of fight week. If the doctor insisted that Ngannou should not compete, they would heed the advice and pull out. Nicksick and company went to lunch while Ngannou spoke with the doctor. After reconnecting, Ngannou informed his coach, "We're fighting boys." A few minutes later, Nicksick asked Ngannou for details on his conversation with the doctor.

"'He said to pull out. My knee is shattered," Ngannou said, according to Nicksick. "I shouldn't fight this fight but we're doing it anyways.'"

Everyone expects a knockout when Ngannou fights. His otherworldly power has translated to 12 of 17 professional victories by way of KO or TKO. His wrestling was terribly exposed in his first UFC heavyweight title fight against Stipe Miocic. While he had surely worked on his takedown defense since that fight, few expected him to employ a wrestling-heavy attack against Ciryl Gane. The game plan was, in part, a response to just how compromised his knee was.

"He was in so much pain in the first two rounds. He didn't say anything to me on the stool, but I can tell by his face and his body language that he was concerned. And he said that. He was like, 'Man, like, I could not move. I could not plant my foot. I couldn't get any lateral move and I couldn't track him down,'" Nicksick said. "But Francis has a f--- it switch and I've seen him pull it. I've seen him hit it where he's like, 'You know what, f--- it. I don't give a shit about my knee anymore. I don't give a shit about what the UFC said. I don't care about anything. I'm going to go win this f---ing fight.' And that's just kind of his mentality.

"There's no person I've ever met in my life that has been through the things that Francis Ngannou has been through. So when you guys saw that moment of 2-2 going into round five, it was a sense of belief in and relief for me, knowing that I knew I had the better athlete on the stool right then and there. I looked over at Gane and I go to Francis... I made it loud and clear that Gane was broken. I wanted Gane to hear me say it and I wanted Francis to say it."

It was up to Ngannou to present himself as the more stoic fighter no matter how fatigued he was. Nicksick gives Ngannou full credit for entering the fifth round with more composure than his opponent.

"Francis was the better athlete that time and he was going to see his way through any adversity," Nicksick said. "It didn't matter if he had one leg or one arm, he was going to find a way to win that fight."