Lee Mein (left) and Jordan (photo via canadianmartialartscentre.com)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Although Jordan Mein had hoped to return to action before the year is out, following his stoppage loss to Matt Brown in April, the rising welterweight’s 2013 campaign is over. The fighter’s coach and father Lee Mein has confirmed that a knee injury the 24 year-old incurred a couple of months ago, will keep him out of action until early 2014.

“His eye is good but he tore his MCL,” said Lee Mein, while referring to the broken orbital bone Jordan incurred in his UFC on FOX 7 slugfest with Brown. “So he’s out till that heals; so hopefully he fights in February.”

Prior to facing Brown, who is currently ranked #9 in the UFC’s welterweight division, Mein (27-9) had gone 9-1 in his last ten fights. The only man to defeat him during that run was fellow UFC competitor Tyron Woodley, who handed him a split decision loss in January, 2012. The loss to Brown was also the first time since 2008, that Mein had been stopped or submitted.

“He hates to lose but he handled it well. To keep fighting with a fractured orbital bone from thirty seconds into the fight, showed me how tough physically and mentally he is,” Lee Mein noted, when asked how his son took the defeat. “He started working on things right away to fix the little mistakes in the fight he made. He is dying to get back in there and lay a beating on someone.”

Jordan Mein (far). Photo credit: Esther Lin/Strikeforce

It will be interesting to see who the UFC matches Jordan up next, considering he stopped rugged veteran Dan Miller at UFC 158 in March, in what was his Octagon debut.

“Anybody they want to match him up with is ok with us,” Lee Mein relayed. “Jordan still wants top guys; he knows he can beat them.”

While Jordan has been unable to fight due to various injuries, his 46 year-old father recently returned to action, and quickly stopped Bobby Kalmakoff at Rumble in the Cage 48.

“For my fight the guy asked to fight me,” said the heavyweight Mein, who made his pro debut approximately 13 years ago. “I had no real plans on fighting anytime soon, but felt good, so thought why not.”

“With promoting the show and coaching my guys and fighting makes for an interesting few weeks leading up to the fight,” added Mein, who is also the promoter for RITC. “He came at me and I placed a good left palm strike to his jaw and he went down. I thought he would keep fighting but he quit. I was pretty disappointed; I wanted a good battle for the home town crowd.”

The bout, which ended a three fight losing streak for the veteran trainer, lasted just eight seconds.

“I have knocked out lots of guys with the palm strike from the Bas Rutten MMA System,” said Mein, when asked to elaborate on the technique. “The key is to throw like a open hook punch and have the wrist bone hit first, not the actual palm of your hand. Everyone thinks I bitch slap guys but it’s actually a palm heel strike.”

“Thought he would try and fight more. I had some submissions I wanted to pull off in a fight. Oh well. I will have to fight again soon. Only 46 (so) lots of fights left.”