Corey was fighting Dale Hartt that night in an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, N.C. Hartt had just checked a leg kick from the spindly 6-foot-4 Hill, who at 155 pounds is built like the Mini Me version of former NBA star Manute Bol.

“He went down and I honestly didn’t know what had happened,” Hartt said.

For a few dizzying seconds, Hartt didn’t know either what had happened or what to do. But now, more than a year later, he says he will never forget.

Hill fractured the tibia and the fibula in his right leg when he kicked Hartt’s leg. Hill’s shin snapped the way a baseball bat cracks when a 96 mph fastball bores in on the hitter’s fists.

Hartt followed Hill to the mat, as fighters usually do when they score a knockdown. But he didn’t throw any punches. He heard the referee shouting and could make out Hill moaning, “My leg! My leg!”

Hartt looked back and saw Hill’s right leg bent into a V-shape at about mid-shin. “When I finally saw Corey’s leg, I was like, ‘Holy (expletive)!’ ” Hartt said. “It’s one of those things, when you see it, you’ll never forget it. I’ll be 90 years old on my deathbed and I’ll still remember that.”

Hill underwent surgery and had a rod inserted into his leg, which was held in place with pins at the ankle and the knee.

Many who saw the injury, one of the most gruesome in the 16-year history of the UFC, wondered not whether Hill would ever be able to fight again, but whether he’d walk without the aid of a cane or a crutch.

“It was pretty bad,” Hill says, chuckling, a year after the injury. “Kind of messed up plans for Christmas, I’d say.”

A second Christmas is at hand since the injury and it is a much different Corey Hill than the angry, disillusioned worried young man who was a prisoner in his own bed in the weeks after his injury.

He’s bright, optimistic and filled with hope, looking eagerly at the future and dreaming of one day handing the UFC lightweight championship belt to his wife.

Hill has already gotten a present and he doesn’t have to seek out a gift-wrapped box under the tree to get it.


Corey Hill (right) throws a kick at Dale Hartt moments before his fateful injury.

UFC.com
He’ll fight Mike Dizak on Jan. 23 at the Raging Wolf VI fight card at the Seneca Niagara Casino Hotel in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

For Hill, stepping into the cage once again will be the ultimate redemption, a story of courage and determination that turned a potential tragedy into a fairy tale.

Hill, 31, was tormented by the pain in his leg and unable to do even the most basic bodily functions without assistance. Yet, his wife wouldn’t stand to hear him talk of giving up.


“If you want to know the truth, I was an ass,” he said. “I was like a little baby. I whined. I yelled. She literally had four kids to take care of: The three we have, plus myself. I was a baby. I couldn’t get to the bathroom. I had to stay in bed and pee in a freaking bucket for almost four months.

“This sounds gross, but there were times when I urinated on myself because my bucket was too far and I couldn’t get to it. She came home to some bad scenarios and it never fazed her.”

He didn’t watch the tape of his fight with Hartt until Nov. 2, about 11 months after the accident. He still won’t watch the slow motion replays.

“As a fighter, you know there are all sorts of risks, and they’re scary, but you have to repress that and go out and be confident,” Hill said. “I just can’t watch that slow motion, though. The fight itself, in normal speed, it’s not bad. Slow motion? Nah. I don’t think so. I don’t need to see that.”


But he already knows one conversation he wants to have when the fight is over and, win or lose, he walks out of the cage under his own power.

“I want to talk to my wife and tell her, ‘We did it,’ ” Hill said, bubbling with enthusiasm.
It would take a lot of balls to get back in the ring after what happened to him!! I wish him the best of luck!