(On the topic of painful leg injuries…)
We all saw lightweight Charles Oliveira get dropped and finished by Cub Swanson Saturday night at UFC 152. What we didn’t see, according to cut man Jacob “Stitch” Duran, was Oliveira injure his knee just before fighting Swanson while warming up in the locker room.
“I do know that in preparation for going out there, warming up, he twisted his knee,” Duran told MMA Junkie.
Duran also said that Oliveira needed assistance walking up the steps into the Octagon to fight Swanson. Junkie could not immediately reach Oliveira or representatives of the fighter but pointed out that “medical suspensions made public…on the Association of Boxing Commission’s official record keeper, mixedmartialarts.com, stated that Oliveira has drawn an indefinite term and needs a CT scan or MRI to be cleared to fight.”
We don’t yet know if that is because of head trauma sustained in the fight from the KO loss, this knee injury that “Stitch” says happened or both. If he did jack his knee up just moments before fighting, Oliveira deserves credit for not even mentioning it as an excuse thus far.
As for freak, last-minute injuries, Junkie correctly points out that these things sometimes happen in MMA. “Several fighters have injured themselves just prior to fights. In one infamous incident, former UFC heavyweight champ Kevin Randleman slipped on a pipe backstage prior to a fight with Pedro Rizzo at UFC 24 and knocked himself unconscious, which prompted officials to cancel the fight. UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock was pulled from a fight with Kevin ‘Kimbo Slice‘ Ferguson at ‘EliteXC: Heat when he sustained a cut over his eye while grappling with a training partner on the day of the event,” they wrote.
Bonus OG ‘tater points to you if you have been watching MMA long enough to remember the bizzare announcement over the telecast at UFC 24 where Randleman’s slapstick moment postponed a title fight. Thank goodness the UFC has come far along enough where pipes are no longer just splayed across the floor of locker rooms and walk ways at their events.
– Elias Cepeda