Tag: Injury

(A bone infection is one thing, but a case of nipple eyes? There’s no coming back from that.) 

A fun fact about Demian Maia: In his 19 fight UFC career, the Jiu-Jitsu ace had *never* pulled out of a scheduled contest. Until last weekend, that is, when a bone bruise in his shoulder saw him replaced by Jordan Mein against Mike Pyle at Fight Night 49.

Unfortunately, it appears that Maia’s injury has developed into something much more serious, which has postponed his return to the octagon indefinitely. MMAFighting has the details:

[Maia] suffered a bone bruise in his shoulder while training, which later developed a staph infection. That staph infection has now led to a bone infection, which hospitalized the Brazilian welterweight this past week.

Maia’s manager Eduardo Alonso told UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani that Maia is being treated for osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection commonly caused by bacteria. Alfonso said that the infection is on Maia’s right clavicle bone, and will require a six-week antibiotics treatment through IVs, and then follow with a course orally.

As if that wasn’t bad enough already, Alonso also stated that, due to the seriousness of the infection, Maia has had a catheter installed “through his right arm near his heart” and now requires a nurse to visit him at home twice daily to check up on him. As of now, Maia will undergo his current treatment for 5 weeks, after which his condition will be reassessed.

Just an awful, awful development for one of the most humble and respectful guys in the sport (when he’s not squeezing your brains out through your nose), who at 36 years old, still has a ton of good fights left in him. Maia last competed at the TUF Brazil 3 Finale, where he snapped a two-fight skid via a unanimous decision over late replacement opponent Alexander Yakovlev.

We’d like to wish Maia a speedy recovery from this unfortunate injury, so head over to his Twitter pageto do the same.

–J. Jones