(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…
(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.
Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal — avid Twitterer, occasional forum poster and all around social media force, has been noticeably absent from the ever-probing eye of the MMA world. Recently, it came to light that Lawal had some life threatening health concerns, and had been in the hospital for an extended period of time. A call to action has been issued on his behalf via concerned fans on various forums and Twitter. Prayer groups, emergency PayPal funding and several other good intentions have been proposed as possibilities for fans to render their own brand of help and good will. In an exclusive interview yesterday that will put your worried minds at ease, Mo gave us the 411 on his injuries, current health and financial status, and even an update of what shows he’s currently watching.
Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal — avid Twitterer, occasional forum poster and all around social media force, has been noticeably absent from the ever-probing eye of the MMA world. Recently, it came to light that Lawal had some life threatening health concerns, and had been in the hospital for an extended period of time. A call to action has been issued on his behalf via concerned fans on various forums and Twitter. Prayer groups, emergency PayPal funding and several other good intentions have been proposed as possibilities for fans to render their own brand of help and good will. In an exclusive interview yesterday that will put your worried minds at ease, Mo gave us the 411 on his injuries, current health and financial status, and even an update of what shows he’s currently watching.
The Secret
“My health is good, but here’s the thing: All this stuff that came out [on Twitter], happened like three weeks ago. I had an ACL replacement again, but that wasn’t a big deal. I think what got me was the micro-fracture surgery. The micro-fractures got infected with staph, and I ended up in the hospital for about 12 days. I didn’t want people to know I was in the hospital, so if people texted me, I didn’t tell them. I was in pain and damned near dying. They gave me morphine. It was crazy. I was trying to keep it normal, and get back to the people that were texting me, telling them that I was ok, so that it wouldn’t get out that I was in the hospital.”
Discovery
“I was in the hospital for 12 days and I had five procedures to remove the staph infection from my knee. I didn’t even know there was anything wrong until I came back from Brazil, and my knee was swollen. I couldn’t flex my leg or bend it. That’s when I started doing this rehab stuff after taking the S-Mass Lean Gainer, because that was like my rehab supplement. It’s supposed to be like NO-explode. So I was taking that for a week, and I was like ‘Man, it’s not working.’ My knee was still swollen, and I couldn’t flex my leg. I went to the [orthopedic surgeon] and got my knee drained and got the ‘rooster cartilage’ [orthovisc] injected in. I went for an MRI and [the doctor] told me that my cartilage looked very unstable and that I had torn my ACL. The funny thing is, he said I could have torn it a long time ago, because when he drained my knee, there was no blood there. He told me my ACL was torn and I was gonna need a new one. After the fight, I had the surgery. A week passed, I was doing rehab a little ahead of schedule, and all the sudden my leg started feeling hot and I had these two golf ball-sized welts on my knee.”
Five Procedures and a PICC Line
“It was the day of the Evans/Davis fight. I called the doctor and told him my leg was hot and I had these golf ball lumps on my knee, so he says ‘Come to the office and we’ll check it out.’ He drained my knee, and the blood was like Ghostbusters ectoplasm. It was thick and gooey. He took the blood to the lab, and I went home to watch the fights. Right after Sonnen-Bisping, I got a phone call. ‘Mo, meet me at the hospital now.’ He said ‘We have to take you under right now to clean out the infection in your knee.’ So they took me to surgery and cleaned it out. I wake up, and I have a PICC line in my arm that’s attached to my heart. I didn’t think it was that bad and that I was gonna leave Sunday. The doctor said he was keeping me until Monday. Monday comes, and my temperature shot up to 103 or 104, and my knee was still swollen. They took me back into surgery and cleaned it out again. He did the same procedures every other day, depending on how it looked and how my temperature was.”
Reaction
“I felt like, because I’m a fighter, I should be tough. I’ve been through a lot, but when I look back, this is the worst I’ve ever been through. I wouldn’t wish this on nobody. This infection definitely was worse than the one on my face or the one on my elbow. My doctor said that he wanted to take cultures of my skin because I carry more staph than the average person. He said that people that engage in combat sports tend to carry more staph on their skin. It just remains dormant. The bad thing is, once you get a staph infection, it stays in your blood and remains dormant until it finds a weak spot and it jumps in there. It’s an opportunistic infection. It was scary but I didn’t want to tell nobody, because I wasn’t trying to get sympathy. I didn’t want people worrying about me.”
Financial Status
“ZUFFA has no responsibility on this, but it’s all taken care of. The hundreds of thousands of dollars that I’m supposedly in debt are all bogus. People assume that I didn’t have a plan when it comes to injuries, and that I’d be in debt. All that is bogus. I’m not in debt. The UFC, their insurance is good, especially if you get hurt during training camp, but this injury occurred before the 18 month period was up. They had no responsibility to handle this. It was all on me, but it’s already taken care of. I’m not under any financial hardship. I can still pay rent, still go eat at McDonald’s, still go buy Pepsi, still chill and relax, watch ‘The Walking Dead.’ I got cable still. The moment I get rid of my cable is when I’m in trouble, and I’m not ever getting rid of cable.”
When asked what shows he’s currently watching , Mo listed The Walking Dead, Eastbound & Down, and American Dad as the three he’s currently consumed with. He indicates that he plans on making his return to Twitter sometime this week, so all of you who have been missing his music video tweets and fight chat, have something to look forward to.