Former Bellator Fighting Championship featherweight champ Joe Soto (9-1) is facing one of the toughest fights of his career right now. After losing his mother to a road accident last Christmas, the fighter is battling to keep his vision due to a detached retina.
MMAWeekly.com broke the news on Thursday.
Soto, likely in the fight with Warren, though they’re not certain, suffered a detached retina and was undergoing surgery at the time of publication of this article.
Following the knockout loss to (Joe) Warren, Soto started to develop black spots before his eyes, smaller at first, but growing larger as the days went by, according to his manager, Tom Call. Luckily, his fight team’s doctor, Gary Furness, immediately pressed him to go see a specialist.
That he did on Wednesday, and less than 24 hours later, on Thursday morning, Soto was rushed into surgery to repair a severely detached retina.
Soto is faced with a two surgery procedure which has him sitting for the next year, and after the second surgery, another six months.
The former champ lost his Bellator title to Warren at Bellator 27 last month in the Sept. 2 event in San Antonio, Texas. The loss was Soto’s first career defeat.