CB Dolloway was forced out of his UFC 203 bout against Francimar Barroso last Saturday (Sept. 10, 2016) in Cleveland, Ohio, after a he sustained a back injury when a faulty elevator carrying him, as well as several others UFC fighters, fell from the second floor all the way to the basement.
Brad Tavares — who defeated Caio Magalhaes at the pay-per-view (PPV) event — was among those involved in the incident and admitted that he too, was feeling the effects of the fall. As he told MMA Weekly, his back felt a little stiff, but not enough to force him to bow out.
That said, Tavares was disappointed that The Wyndham Hotel staff handled the situation with a care-free attitude, but is thankful they didn’t drop from higher up, as it could’ve have led to major disaster for all parties involved.
“The hotel themselves didn’t even address it at all. They didn’t even say like, ‘Hang on guys, please fill out this incident report.’ They were like, ‘Okay, whatever.’ The UFC staff called us personally and said the guys in the elevator to please come back to fill out these witness statements or whatever, incident reports. My team was myself, Ray Sefo, Erick, Yancy was in there. And then Werdum, CB, Urijah; so imagine if it fell from further than the second floor? We could have sustained major injuries and this card may not have even happen tonight.”
I can’t even imagine the legal issues the hotel chain would’ve been swamped with had that occurred.
As Tavares explained, the elevator system to the hotel was acting up all week, but after they were informed the issues had been taken care of, the group felt comfortable taking it down. He also admitted that the sheer mass due to all of the fighters may have been too much — which he described as “assholes to elbows” full — but no alert was given that the weight limit was at capacity.
No official word as to what caused the elevator to drop has been released, but the promotion is working closely with the Wyndham Hotel to get to the bottom of the incident.
Thankfully, other than Dollaway’s back injury, no other major issues occurred.