Out of all of the defeats that Charles Oliveira suffered during his decades long UFC run, the loss to Max Holloway is perhaps the most intriguing one. Oliveira faced Max Holloway for the main event of UFC Fight Night 74, in August of 2015.
At the time, both Oliveira and Holloway were young up-and-coming prospects in the UFC’s featherweight division.
As soon as the action started, Oliveira attempted a double leg takedown, Holloway was able to defend. When the Brazilian got up from the ground, he appeared to feel an injury in his neck, that forced him to drop to the ground in agony.
Herb Dean quickly called the fight and Holloway earned a TKO victory due to an injury.
A lot was talked about what exactly happened to Oliveira during . At the time, some reports stated that Charles had suffered a “torn esophagus”, despite the pain coming from his neck.
Recently on a Brazilian podcast alongside comedian Rafinha Bastos, “Do Bronx” opened up about what exactly happened to him during that contest.
“20 days before the fight I got taken down during wrestling practice, and I hit my head,” Oliveira said. “Despite that, I kept training normally.”
“As soon as the training session ended I rested against the wall and I started feeling my neck tingling. When someone called me I turned to turn my head and I couldn’t so I was like “damn, I injured my neck!”.
“I went to the doctor and he prescribed me a medicine that was apparently very strong. I started taking the medicine and I wasn’t feeling exactly better, but the pain was significantly lower so I kept training.”
“However, I know my own body, when the weight cut process began I noticed that my weight wasn’t going down as it used to. At that moment I told my team ‘I think that medicine is not allowing my weight to drop.’ ”
“I stopped taking it. On the very next day, I was already feeling the tingling sensation coming back.””
“However, I endured it and made the weight. As soon as I made 145 I took the medicine again before the fight.”
Oliveira then details that during the first takedown attempted against Holloway, he hit his head against the cage the very same way that he had hit it before in practice, which in turn made his neck injury a lot worse.
” and I went for his legs. When he transitioned away from the takedown I hit my head against the cage.
“When I got up I felt my whole body tingling.”
“I lost movement on the entire left side of my body. While I was in the hospital some whack reporters said that it was an esophagus problem and so and so… not even I knew what I had at the time.”
“When I got to the hospital I couldn’t feel anything on my left side. I thought I was never going to walk again.”
Later, “Do Bronx” stated that he slowly began recovering the movement in his body. Despite the scary and potentially career-ending injury, Oliveira was able to continue with his MMA career.
Years after his injury loss, Oliveira moved up in weight and is now the undisputed UFC lightweight champion.
The Brazilian Champion will be defending his belt against Justin Gaethje for the main event of UFC 275  that will take place on May 7, 2022, at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona, United States.
https://youtu.be/zaFDIZmW4Iw