Under normal circumstances, the most dangerous thing inside the cage is your opponent.
That wasn’t the case at Martial Combat League 3 last weekend at Firelake Arena and Event Center in Shawnee, Okla., where regional MMA fighter Hunter Boone was nearly scalped after colliding with an exposed part of the cage.
“About two seconds into the fight he and his opponent went down and apparently a pad on the cage wasn’t secured properly or in place and Hunter got an eight-inch laceration opening up the top of his head,” coach Jason Greer wrote on Facebook. “They took him by ambulance to OU to see a plastic surgeon. Not the way this was supposed to go after all of the work Hunter put in. Much love my guy.”
Check out some of the photos uploaded to My MMA News below:
Thoughts & prayers for Hunter Boone. Amateur fighter was seriously injured on the weekend when his head was split wide open from the cage. pic.twitter.com/t5bHEwte1U
— Jim (@FukingCasuals) February 14, 2022
“Thank you for the thoughts and prayers everyone,” Boone told his Facebook followers. “I’m still pretty out of it so I’ll be resting a few days. Recovery is most important right now. Shout out to Starla Deon Norris for coming to check on me and bringing me food, you’re the best!”
The bout — which lasted just 17 seconds — was ruled a victory for opponent Jordan Brown.
“We’d like to address the incident that occurred during a fight at last night’s event,” Martial Combat League wrote on Facebook. “We understand and appreciate everyone’s concern on what happened and our hearts are with the individual who was injured in this incident. We were in just as much shock as anyone when this occurred. We assembled our cage no differently than we have for each of our previous events. It is our understanding that the sanctioning commission of the event inspected the cage prior to the show. No issues with the cage where brought to our attention by the sanctioning commission.”
This isn’t the first (and probably won’t be the last) story of gnarly cage injuries.
“There was a very unfortunate event that occurred during a takedown near the the door of our cage,” the statement continued. “How the injury occurred is still undetermined and there was no clear sign as to what or why this injury took place. After the cage was cleared of the incident, our cage was fully inspected by multiple individuals of the sanctioning commission and our cage was deemed necessary to continue. We don’t have an answer as to why this injury occurred and we’re, without a doubt, extremely sorry to the individual who suffered this injury.”
No word yet on if or when Boone will be able to make his return to MMA.