Kevin Lee 'still recovering' after 'Charles Oliveira destroyed both my knees in the first round'

Kevin Lee is ready to get back on a hot streak.

The 31-year-old former Lightweight hopeful had all the makings of a future champion during his rise to an interim title opportunity in 2017. Ultimately, Lee fell short against Tony Ferguson via a third round triangle choke and hasn’t performed the same since.

The “Mo-Town Phenom” is 3-5 in his eight bouts post-Ferguson (19-8 overall) and is freshly unretired after less than a year on the shelf. Between finding an appropriate division to compete in, Lee has also battled injuries in recent years and a notable source, according to him, was his loss to Charles Oliveira in March 2020.

“Charles destroyed both my knees in the first round of this fight and we kept fighting, three knee surgeries since and I’m still recovering four years later,” Lee tweeted.

“I didn’t know until weeks later how bad it was,” he continued. Hospitals were shut down. But let me be clear I’m not taking away from Charles' performance in that fight he did a great job and showed why he’s a champion. Fighting somebody like that is just dangerous [as f—k].”

Lee’s last fight saw him back at Welterweight in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) when he was welcomed by surging prospect, Rinat Fakhretdinov. Unfortunately for Lee, he was put to sleep in less than a minute when the “Gladiator” dropped him and sank in a guillotine choke at the 55-second mark (watch highlights).

The plan for Lee is to give Lightweight another go in this latest chapter of his career, properly dieting and enduring the difficulties he used to at his peak. Ideally, he expects a return in or around the summertime. Meanwhile, the aforementioned former champion, Oliveira, gets set to take on Arman Tsarukyan at UFC 300 on April 13, 2024.