Mikey Musumeci secured a fast submission victory in just two minutes, but it was what happened afterward that drew the most attention…
As shortly after the bout, Musumeci revealed he had been dealing with a serious staph infection leading into the event:
Yeah, like two days ago and like I couldn’t walk last night…
I was in the hospital. I was just very dizzy, out of it.
He explained that the condition worsened rapidly, leaving him unable to properly prepare:
I couldn’t warm up today. I slept 20 hours last night…
It was more just me in that desperation, finish the match because I knew I didn’t have a lot of energy.
According to Musumeci, the infection began from something minor:
It was just a mosquito bite… And then all of a sudden it went from being an itchy mosquito bite to me not being able to walk in pain.
He also clarified that medical staff evaluated him before the match:
The medics looked at it, I showed them the antibiotics I was on… They cleared me.
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However, UFC BJJ President Claudia Gadelha said the promotion was unaware of the situation beforehand:
We had no idea. We didn’t know that this was going on until he said that on the mic and we were like: “Oh,wow.”
I wish he’d said something because then we would have involved our professionals, the PI staff, our medical doctors.
We didn’t know what was happening, but if we knew we would have managed this better.
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