Midnight Mania! Scared-For-His-Life Fighter Takes Dive To Avoid Angry Armed ‘Fan’

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Just about a week ago, the king of watching regional MMA and frequent Midnight Mania highlight, Caposa, posted a strange knockout. In his native Afghanistan, Ahmed Wali Hotak stopped Leonardo Barbosa with a knee to the body. The crowd went wild, but Barbosa’s reaction to the strike was … strange.

See for yourself:

Now that Barbosa is safely away from that cage, the 32-year-old Brazilian feels more confident in telling the whole story. Indeed, it wasn’t the strike that had Barbosa reeling; he was afraid for his life, the result of an unknown man brandishing a weapon and aggressively yelling at Barbosa both before the fight and between rounds!

“I come here to disclose facts that occurred in my last fight that is not something that sport preaches,” Barbosa wrote on Facebook. “When arriving in Afghanistan I was very well received by the organization of the event and also by the Afghan people, everything was fine until the moment I arrived at the gym where it happened. The event, when in the locker room arrived a ??fan?? and said something I didn’t understand and showed me that he was armed.

“Until then it’s okay, because it’s common for the people to carry guns there. When the fight started, this same fan was with two security guards, and he wouldn’t stop shouting the same things he told me in the locker room or something like that always with a lot of anger. It went back to being aggressive at the break of the first to the second round. I was just in a strange country; I felt scared, I wanted to preserve my life because I honestly didn’t want to find out how far the anger of that ??fan?? would go.”

Rather than risk the anger of an armed fan and apparent supporter of his opponent, Barbosa made the wise choice of throwing the bout and (literally) living to fight another day. Fortunately, there may be a rematch between the two athletes on more neutral ground.

“I don’t blame the organization of the event or the Afghan people for that, this was an isolated case. The event to preserve my safety promised me the rematch outside Afghanistan, I’m waiting for the contract so that we can do this fight and let the result define itself in the right way … I hope that in the next fight we can give the a show that you deserve and that you expect thanks for all the messages of support.”

Insomnia

I feel bad for Stephen Thompson, because he isn’t likely to get his title shot. Welterweight is a frustrating division.

Can Bellator’s rankings be worse than UFC’s? It seems impossible.

I am not trying to insult Dan Hardy in any way, but the combination of hard-ass caption and slow-paced training is funny. Will the Englishman ever make his comeback?

I probably should not post this, but it’s hilarious, so … explicit word warning!

This is absolutely worth a repost.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this band workout, it looks like practice for wrestling-style snap downs?

Slips, rips, and KO clips

There’s like a million fights scheduled for Saturday night, so even when half of ‘em fall out, there will still be plenty of action.

If the UFC fights aren’t enough, there’s also some fisticuffs scheduled for Saturday.

A picture-perfect spinning back elbow KO!

Random Land

A stroll along the sand.

Midnight Music: An ultra classic soul track that’s also a staple of the Team Alpha Male room!

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.