Brad Tavares Ready to Fight, Explains ‘Miscommunication’ That Led to Rumored Exit from TUF Finale

Brad Tavares is healthy and ready to fight.

That’s the biggest message the No. 8 ranked middleweight wants to pass along just days ahead of his main event fight against highly touted prospect Israel Adesanya at “The Ultimate Fighter” season 27 finale card on Friday in Las Vegas.

A few weeks back, UFC president Dana White had said that Tavares was out of the fight after suffering a broken foot and the search was on for a replacement. Tavares quickly reacted to that news by responding that he was healthy and definitely still fighting despite the rumored injury.

Tavares explained that his rumored ailment was an old injury that flares up occasionally during training camp but he was just receiving treatment like he’s done previously in the lead up to his fights.

“So I had an old injury that basically got taken as a new, current injury,” Tavares explained. “A lot of misinformation and miscommunication because the UFC medical personnel that relayed this message to Dana [White] had never even spoken to me, had never ever spoke to their own UFC [physical therapy] staff who I had been working with at the UFC [Performance Institute].

“Just a lot of miscommunication, misinformation and it blew up.”

To prove that he was healthy enough to fight, Tavares took to social media to show off his workout as further proof that his foot was in perfect shape in preparation for his matchup with Adesanya on Friday.

“After it all happened, I posted a video of me working out doing heavy squats, jumping, stuff that you wouldn’t be able to do,” Tavares said. “It was an injury that I had a while ago and like I said they misconstrued it and it blew up but I’m fine. I’m ready to rock and roll.”

Truth be told, Tavares says hardly any fighter will ever step into the cage at 100-percent health because the rigors of an intense training camp will always end with a few bumps and bruises.

In fact, Tavares says if he ever walked into a fight without any injuries he might be worried that he didn’t push hard enough during his training camp.

“That’s exactly my thoughts and that’s what I was saying — I don’t think that I’ve ever gone into a fight without any kind of injury,” Tavares said with a laugh. “That being said, there are injuries that are a lot more serious and there are fight preventing injuries.

“I feel like if I ever approached a fight and everything was perfect, like nothing [wrong], I would almost feel a little weird.”