Mikey Musumeci shared the alarming details surrounding the injury that took him out of ONE Championship’s return to ‘The Mile High City’ in September.
Reigning as the ONE flyweight submission grappling world champion, Musumeci was scheduled to square off with ADCC and CJI Invitational winner Kade Ruotolo at ONE 168. Unfortunately, Ruotolo was forced to bow out of the bout after sustaining injuries during his $1 million run at the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational weeks earlier.
As a result, Musumeci was instead booked to defend his flyweight title against Bebeto Oliveira at the event. The only problem was, ‘Darth Rigatoni’ was never scheduled to defend his title. Instead, he was scheduled to move up three weight classes and challenge Ruotolo for his ONE lightweight submission grappling crown.
With a new opponent and only a week to cut a whopping 35 pounds, Musumeci immediately got to work. Unfortunately, he’d never make it to fight night. Musumeci missed weight and was subsequently stripped of his flyweight title. Weeks later, he exited ONE Championship.
Appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show, Musumeci shed some light on the situation and revealed that he was suffering from a very rare and life threatening illness while trying to cut the weight for ONE 168.
“So, basically, they offered me another opponent at 178 pounds,” Musumeci said. “I had to be a minimum of, I believe, like 165 or 160-something, but I walk around a lot lighter. I couldn’t legally make that weight because of the Athletic Commission rules. I told them, ‘I can’t make that weight,’ so I preferred to just stick to my division.
“At the time, I was very light. I could’ve made 135 pounds, no problem. But then the lung injury happened, which none of us knew about at the time. I only had two days to make weight, whereas I usually need at least a week. The night before the match, at weigh-ins, I was 140 pounds hydrated. The fight was set at 135 pounds. That night, I sustained the injury, which turned out to be called pneumomediastinum.
“It’s when your lung tears, and air leaks into your throat. I was trying to sweat and kept telling my friends, ‘What is wrong with my throat? It feels so sore.’ It felt like crispy bubbles in my throat. We all thought I was just dehydrated or dizzy. But I knew something felt off.
“I also tried a different style of cutting weight since I had only two days,” Musumeci continued. “I drank a lot of electrolytes, thinking it would help with the hydration test. In ONE Championship, they use a gravity test to check the sodium level in your urine. If it’s above 1.0250, you fail hydration. I thought drinking electrolytes would keep my levels balanced. But when the lung issue happened, my body shut down. I couldn’t sweat anymore and became super dizzy. My urine had so much sodium from the electrolytes that I couldn’t flush it out, even after drinking three gallons of water. Everything got stuck in my stomach.
“At that point, I felt something was really wrong and decided to go to the hospital. It turned out I was incredibly lucky not to have fought. The doctor said my lung would have collapsed in one minute, and I could have died.”
Mikey Musumeci explains why he left ONE Championship
According to Musumeci, the condition usually accounts for one in every 42,000 hospital cases.
“I was there for three or four days,” Musumeci added. “When I left, I couldn’t elevate my heart rate or breathe heavily for two weeks. Even walking made me feel weird. It was scary.”
Musumeci being forced to cut so much weight in such a short span sparked outrage from fight fans who lambasted ONE Championship for putting the New Jersey native in an almost impossible situation and then proceeded to strip him of his ONE flyweight submission grappling title when he couldn’t hit the mark.
Explaining why he decided to leave ONE, Musumeci appeared to hold no animosity toward the organization or it’s CEO, Chatri Sityodtong, who he describes as a parental figure.
Musumeci has since signed a landmark deal with the UFC and is scheduled to make his debut at UFC Fight Pass Invitational 9 on December 5. ‘Darth Rigatoni’ will take on Felipe Machado at the event.
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