UFC President Dana White Delays Ear Surgery Until Next Year

It seems Dana White's ongoing battle with Meniere's disease won't end until 2013.

According to the UFC president, his pending ear surgery has been pushed back to January due to a schedule conflict with available medical professionals.

White confirmed the news Tuesday with MMA Fighting: "My schedule and the doctor's didn't line up," he said, via text message."

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According to MayoClinic.com, Ménière's disease "is a disorder of the inner ear that causes spontaneous episodes of vertigo — a sensation of a spinning motion — along with fluctuating hearing loss, ringing in the ear, and sometimes a feeling of fullness or pressure in your ear."

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Although the UFC president is well known for closely managing nearly every UFC event in the past 11 years, symptoms of the disease prevented him from attending UFC on FUEL TV 3 this past May.

White suffered another attack during the week leading up to UFC 152 in Toronto, Canada, although it did not prevent him from performing his usual duties on fight night.

During an interview on Inside MMA, White described the disease as "horrible" and stated that his doctors wanted surgery to be a last resort. A previous solution was to have the damaged nerve in his inner ear cut, followed by weeks of rehabilitation.

After UFC 153, Dana White filled in MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani about an entirely different surgical procedure, involving inserting an artificial tube through the back of his inner ear. If it succeeds, the operation should render extended rehab unnecessary.