UG member relates horrors of unregulated MMA event in Michigan
The State of Michigan has so egregiously failed to adequately regulate amateur Mixed Martial Arts that the ABC has taken…
The State of Michigan has so egregiously failed to adequately regulate amateur Mixed Martial Arts that the ABC has taken the unprecedented step of asking the member commissions to bar Michigan fighters, or those who have recently competed in Michigan. Now a UG member recounts a horrific incident in which his brother nearly loses his life.
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Amateur MMA promotion almost killed my brother.
From: ITS_KGEEZY
Member Since: 12/9/11
Posts: 159
I know this is a long read but it’s very important that I tell the whole story. Please read it. This all took place about 3 months ago. And this is truly a horrific story about what happened.
My brother fought his first kickboxing match at an amateur MMA fight in Lapeer, Michigan. When we got to the event we were all sitting in the backroom with the fighters and coaches while the promoters were rushing around setting up match ups. This all seemed very unprofessional to me as about all of the predetermined match ups were changed around and it seemed as if weight classes were no longer an issue as guys were matched up to the closest weight they could find. One guy was even asked from the crowd to fight, and he did, lost and suffered an abrasion on his forehead where you could see his skull… As I had to leave in a hurry after my brothers fight I did not get to see how they handled that situation… My brothers original match up filled in for another fight so my brother needed an opponent. They brought a guy up to us, told us he was around my brothers weight (155lbs), and said he has a little mma experience and hasn’t trained in awhile. My coach, against his better judgement, asked my brother if he was ok with fighting this guy. My whole family was there, my brother cut from 170, has been training his ass off, and is one of the toughest people I know. He would of fought anybody they asked him to.
First off they told us he needed to weigh in at 155. My brother worked his ass off to cut to 155. I assume a lot of you know how much goes into the cutting process. And at the event I didn’t even see a scale. …I heard the promoter say this guy weighs this, this guy weighs that, and then they fight eachother… The promoter told us his opponent was 160, he looked much bigger then 160, he was about 6’2 with an athletic build.
My brothers pumped but nervous, as most people are at their first fight, but he was ready. My team walked with him up to the cage and he was in the zone.
As his opponent walks in, the announcer say he’s 3-0 in kick boxing, weird since we were told he had a little mma experience.
The fight starts and my brother rushes his much taller opponent and turns it into a dog fight. His opponent seemed very good. He landed the harder shots, but my brother controlled the pace. I’d say my brother won the 1st round.
My brother was exhausted after the first. He had no gas left. The second round wasn’t pretty. As my brother seemed to barely be able to throw punches anymore, his opponent unloaded on him, and dropped him. He gets up and goes back at his opponent, while his opponent landed hard shots for the next minute and a half until my brother went down again. He got up, but the referee was our good friend and training partner, and stopped the fight because he didn’t want him to keep getting punished. My brother walks out of the cage and back into the prep area seeming just a little wobbly. As we get back there, he lays on the ground and starts talking about how bad his head hurts. The medical staff on site started checking him out.
And by medical staff I mean a girl in nursing school, who looked about 18 years old. She said his pupils were non responsive, and starts asking him questions. This is where it got bad.
She asked If he knew where he was, he said at a volleyball tournament. She asked him the year, he said 2008. She asked the promoter to call the EMT (all mma events are required to have one on call). He said they didn’t have one on call. He looked very nervous, and called 911. At this point my brother became unresponsive.
We waited 20 minutes for the ambulance. The nearest hospital was about 40 minutes from the event. My whole family was trying to get in the back room as I told them they couldn’t see my brother.
We got to the hospital and my whole family and team waited in the waiting room. The doctors told us he had bleeding inside of his brain, causing it to swell and they said he would need to be rushed into surgery to remove a piece of his skull to relieve the swelling. They said he would of been dead in an hour if he didn’t get the surgery.
My brother was very lucky to be alive. He survived the surgery and was kept in the hospital for about a week until he was released.
This was the most horrific moment of my life. Seeing my family like that was very depressing. And I’ve been involved in boxing since I was 12 and started MMA when I was 16. This is a sport that my brother only started training in because of me. And now he will never be able to play any type of sport ever again. His life will never be the same. He loves training mma, playing hockey, and a bunch of other sports. And it has all been taken away from him. Now 3 months later, he still cries about these things, and it fucking kills me to see someone I love go through this.
Come to find out his opponent had over 25 mma fights. Even has a belt in a local promotion. And was training for a fight he had a couple weeks after this event.
Hospital bills are insane. Twenty something thousand dollars for neurosurgery, on top of thousands of dollars for other medical expenses. My brother lost his job because he couldn’t work. And unemployment is not going to cover it.
This is unjust and morally wrong for the promotion to do this.
