Bad luck? Mixed martial artist blows Knee 10 Seconds into Round 1

Benny A. King

FPC: SPECIAL EDITION just aired. The event took place in Giansio Do Iecj in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The card featured 16 bouts across different divisions but what was the most stunning was the outcome of Matheus Maia’s bout.

Matheus Maia managed to destroy his knee within 10 seconds of the bout starting.

While the footage appeared to support an ankle injury the medical team on site had a different opinion.

Going by the doctors tending to the knee after and the fact they let him hobble out of the cage with support the leg does not appear to be broken.

Gruesome leg breaks have become more common in MMA with the emergence of the calf kick as a dominant technique.

A similar fast finish took place in Argentina previously.

Both Ricci and Rios were in good shape at the beginning of the first round. Both  started  with several leg kicks followed by boxing.

But a couple of seconds after, Rios went down after landing a leg kick which was apparently checked by Ricci.

Ricci then followed up the action with ground and pound which prompted the referee to stop the contest.

While Ricci was celebrating his win, the camera panned at Rios’ snapped leg akin to injury suffered by Anderson Silva, Chris Weidman, and Conor McGregor.

Ricci was then announced as the winner via TKO, 17 seconds into the first round.

‘El Cino’ successfully extended his winning streaks to two, even though things didn’t exactly go according to plan. His other win was back in 2017 when he outpointed Ezequiel Vicente Rivera.

Rios must swallow another loss and a lengthy rehabilitation period.

Another gruesome leg break happened to South African heavyweight Willem “The Viking” Smith. The break happened during his bout against Ivan Strydom.

Smith threw a “naked” low kick. This is a type of low kick that is easily predictable. Strydom was then able to check the kick with the hard part of his shin (closer to the knee). This made Smith’s shin completely shatter and his foot wrap around his opponent’s leg.

Many mma fans were horrified seeing the leg break. It was reminiscent of the type of gruesome leg breaks that Chris Weidman, Anderson Silva and Conor McGregor went through.

With this type of leg damage the entire leg can be compromised and the road to recovery is lengthy and full of road blocks. Still, recovery isn’t impossible – Silva reportedly went through the rehab and went on to fight professionally 7 more times.