The oddsmakers expected Mickey Gall to defeat the veteran Diego Sanchez at UFC 235 earlier this month, but in the end, that’s not what happened. Instead, Gall was taken down and walloped to a TKO loss by his crafty foe.

Speaking on The MMA Hour this week, Mickey Gall revealed that he entered this fight with a bevy of health issues — including some serious kidney troubles.

“My kidneys were failing,” Gall said (transcript via MMA Fighting). “Before the fight, I didn’t really know. I could feel — I guess, looking back you could tell a couple of warning signs, like something was going on, but I didn’t go to the fight thinking, ‘Fuck it, whatever, it’s just kidneys.’ I really didn’t know.

“But then when I got in the fight, I was zapped right away. I was zapped. I re-watched the fight, I’m like in slow motion. I remember struggling for balance, just trying to stay on my feet. It was crazy.”

Mickey Gall continued, explaining that he was ultimately diagnosed with a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which can lead to kidney failure.

“I did have rhabdo, but they also think it was like a perfect storm of drops in the bucket that made this happen,” Gall said. “My stomach was a little off for fight week, I had some diarrhea when I was supposed to be cutting weight. And then I did the weight cut — this weight cut was way easier than my last one. I believe sometimes you’ve got to just put the pain in and get through the weight cut. It wasn’t really necessary, I was singing, having a good time, got the weight off.

“At one point I did, when I stood up, I passed out. Which I didn’t think — at the time, I was like, ‘I don’t know, sometimes people pass out, I guess.’ It was easy to write it off, all the warning signs. Not my stomach or my back or my kidneys, like you don’t know what a kidney feeling weird really is like.”

What do you think the future holds for Mickey Gall after this tough setback against Diego Sanchez?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 3/13/2019.