Combat sports doctor explains Robert Whitaker’s grizzly jaw injury from UFC 308: ‘will require fixation with plates and screws’

“The Reaper” has a long road to recovery in his future.

Khamzat Chimaev returned in incredibly brutal fashion at UFC 308 yesterday (Sat., Oct. 26, 2024) when he submitted Robert Whittaker in the first round, snapping his jaw in the process from inside Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, UAE (watch highlights).

Once the grizzly picture of Whittaker’s jaw came out (check it out here), there were many questions about the injury. Thankfully, Dr. David Abbasi, an orthopedic sports surgeon, provided context.

“A lot of confusion over the ‘early tap’ by Robert Whittaker right off the rear-naked choke,” Abbasi said in a video. “You can see those teeth are basically floating back there. Our lower jawline is composed of this bone called the mandible, and likely, he has a fracture or two, which causes this jaw piece to go floating.

“You can see [Chimaev’s] forearm basically cracking and destroying his jaw backward. This is an unstable mandible fracture that will require fixation with plates and screws, where they will make an incision, peel back his lip and then realign the bones and fix it with plates and screws. All the best to Robert Whittaker,” Abbasi concluded.

According to clevelandclinic.org, the recovery for a mandible jaw fracture that includes plates and screws can take up to six months to heal and is not a fun process.

It will be a rough holiday season for Whittaker, but hopefully, he can appear as a guest fighter at UFC 312 in Sydney, Australia.

For complete UFC 308 results, coverage, and highlights, click HERE.