Charles Oliveira has revealed that he had a pre-existing neck injury heading into his UFC Fight Night 74 main event fight with Max Holloway last night which ended abruptly when he was left unable to continue after aggravating the injury during a takedown attempt.
“I injured my neck in training, but did physical therapy and thought everything was fine,” Oliveira told MMAFighting.com, “But when I fell against the cage [during the fight] everything went numb, I couldn’t feel my body.”
Oliveira remains in hospital today as doctor’s continue to run tests to establish the extent of his injury, but nonetheless, ‘Do Bronx’ is already looking ahead to the possibility of a rematch 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.”
It still remains to be seen how long Oliveira will now be sidelined with this neck injury though and meanwhile his opponent Holloway is already looking ahead to other fights, telling reporters post-fight that he’s now targeting a fight either with Frankie Edgar or a rematch with Conor McGregor next.
Holloway Vs Oliveira was an excellent bit of matchmaking from the UFC however and so it would be good to see this fight take place again at some stage in the future.
Update:
While Oliveira himself dsecribed it as simply “a neck injury”, UFC officials have since clarified that it was a micro-tear in his esophagus.
