UFC's Joe Riggs on scary gun accident: 'I shouldn't have lived'

The reaction to the news that Joe Riggs shot himself ranged from inaccurate to sophomoric. Riggs saw articles stating that he intentionally tried to injure himself. Other places poked fun at him.

The UFC welterweight admits that he should have been more careful taking apart his gun. But he was disgusted about some of the things he read online. For him and his family, this was a very serious situation.

"I came real close to dying," Riggs told FOX Sports. "I shouldn’t have lived. It should have killed me. Some of the things people were saying, it's like they have no soul."

Riggs was trying to fix his jammed handgun in August when it accidentally went off. The bullet went through his left palm and thigh, blowing the bones out of his hand and wrecking his hip flexor. It narrowly missed his femoral artery. If that were severed, Riggs likely would have died.

Doctors told the 32-year-old that he would never fight again, mostly because of the damage done to his hand. The timing could not have been worse. Riggs had just signed a contract to fight Paulo Thiago in September hours earlier. It would have been his first UFC bout in eight years.

Riggs was actually sorting through the paperwork while attempting to fix his gun.

"I was not paying attention that the gun deserves, not giving it the respect it deserves," Riggs admitted.

Despite the diagnosis, Riggs was confident he would come back and fight again in the UFC. But even he didn't think he'd recover this soon. Riggs is already booked to meet Ben Saunders at UFC Fight Night on FOX on Dec. 13 in his hometown of Phoenix.

After multiple surgeries, doctors changed their tune about his return to the cage. Riggs now has three, 3-1/2 inch titanium rods from his knuckles down to his wrist holding his hand together. Skin grafts and plastic surgery have repaired the skin. Three weeks ago, he sent a video of himself landing hard left hooks to a heavy bag to UFC matchmaker Joe Silva to prove he was on his way back to full strength.

Riggs said when he tested his hip flexor a few weeks after the injury he could only put three pounds of pressure on a machine. Now, he's up to 390 pounds. Last week, he said he got a call from the Guinness Book of World Records. They want to put him in for the fastest healing time for a pro athlete from an injury of that magnitude.

"I didn’t know I would come back that fast," Riggs said. "Here I am and I'm doing it. It's crazy."

The entire ordeal has been hard enough to overcome emotionally. When the gun went off, Riggs saw only the wound to his leg and he thought for sure he would die. Every time his heart beat, Riggs said blood squirted him in the face.

He went to the bedroom to wake up his wife to tell her goodbye and when he reached for the doorknob, his hand went through it. That was the first time he realized his palm had been hit, too.

"You think you would act all cool and calm in a situation like that," Riggs said. "I was anything but."

His UFC contract was covered in blood, and that was nearly as painful as the physical wounds. Riggs had worked his butt off to get back in the organization. After losing three in a row in 2011, people had written him off. They felt he should retire. But then Riggs moved to The MMA Lab in Glendale, Ariz., and the improvements were tangible.

Since then, Riggs has won six in a row and was the champion of Bellator MMA's "FightMaster" reality show. He was released from his Bellator contract earlier this year after the organization changed leadership and over the summer fulfilled his dream of coming back to the UFC.

Then, it was seemingly all over hours after putting pen to paper on a bout agreement. Riggs obviously had to pull out of the Thiago fight.

"My whole life has been all about overcoming in spite of something," Riggs said. "I was sad for a lot of it, but I always believed I was fighting again. I wouldn't accept the fact that I wouldn’t."

That mentality must have helped. How else to explain such a ridiculously quick recovery? Riggs said he would never enter the Octagon again unless he was 100 percent ready. That's what he plans to be against Saunders, just four months after destroying his hand and thigh with a gun.

"I'm just really thankful where I am now," Riggs said, "because no one thought I would be."