During an interview with mmajunkie.com, Gegard Mousasi (34-3-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) acknowledged that he recently had surgery to repair a torn ACL. Even worse, he confirmed that he tore the same ACL that was previously repaired in March of 2012.

The former Strikforce and Dream champion, Mousasi, made his UFC debut at UFC on Fuel TV 9 in April against Ilir Latifi, knowing that his knee was injured. Gegard was able to pull off the decision victory that night, even while fighting on a severely injured kneww.

In the interview, Gegard indicated that he used the same surgeon that did his previous ACL reconstruction, and that the failure of the first surgery “Wasn’t about the surgery. It was just, maybe training too early or something like that that caused the problems… the surgeon didn’t do anything wrong.” He anticipates returning to action the end of this year, or possibly January 2014 depending on when the UFC has a fight for him.

When asked if his rehab from this ACL surgery will be different from last one, Gegard replied “We’re moving a little bit more faster forward with this one. Its healing also much faster than last time because they did less damage to my knee, so the recovery is going also faster this time.”

Here’s to hoping that Gegard is able to make a speedy recovery and return to the octagon as soon as possible.