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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Charles Oliveira's mysterious injury during the UFC Fight Night 74 main event is still being examined this morning, and to hear him explain what happened, it's a bit scary.
Oliveira attempted to pull guard after Holloway rushed in on him early in the first round, and as he stood up he grabbed at his left shoulder area. It seemed a potential collarbone or shoulder issue, but during the Brazilian broadcast for the event one of the commentators said they'd heard he had a neck injury coming in. In an interview with Guilherme Cruz at MMAFighting.com on Monday morning, Oliveira confirmed that, but said it was something he'd thought had fully healed.
"I injured my neck in training, but did physical therapy and thought everything was fine," Oliveira said, "but when I fell against the cage everything went numb, I couldn't feel my body."
Oliveira said he's "still doing a lot of exams here at the hospital," but at the moment still has his mind on the fight with Holloway.
"I trained really hard for this fight," Oliveira said. "I would like a rematch because there was no fight. I got injured literally the first time I attacked."
Penick's Analysis: That sounds extremely scary, and has to be concerning for all involved. For things to simply go numb on his left side could be caused by any number of things, ranging from relatively minor to quite serious, so it's not surprising at all that lots of testing is being done. Hopefully they can figure out what caused that and determine whether or not it's something that will ever happen again. It's a highly unfortunate situation for Oliveira, especially with how big this fight with Holloway was set up to be. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope doctors can determine what happened here soon.
UPDATE: According to UFC.com, Oliveira suffered a "micro tear" in his esophagus, and will remain in the hospital through Tuesday.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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