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Bumps, bruises, and broken bones are common in every sport. The most entertaining sports are contact sports that involve highly competitive athletes who’ll do anything to win. In some sports, contact can get a little extreme and mixed martial arts (MMA) is definitely the place for extreme contact.
Gruesome injuries are common in MMA, and you can expect to see one or two in every fight card you watch. Normally, you'll see an explosive knockout injury that ends the fight. But in some rare cases, you see fighters put themselves through the unthinkable and fight through these injuries to finish the fight.
This requires a ton of perseverance and mental toughness, so check out our top 5 moments where fighters fought through frightening injuries.
#5 Brandon Vera vs Thiago Silva
When you hear the expression “rearrange someone's face,” more times than not, you think of a cartoon or something animated because it's not realistic for someone's face to be rearranged in real life.
Well, Brandon Vera can beg to differ.
His fight with Thiago Silva showed us something we hadn’t seen before in combat sports. Silva literally cracked Vera’s nose so bad it looked to be broken in 3 different places. Some fans were joking about how his nose resembled the letter “S”.
Hats off to Vera for finishing the fight, but the beating he took was one for the ages. Silva won the fight by unanimous decision but was later ruled a no contest because he got popped for failing a drug test.
#4 Nate Diaz vs Marcus Davis
UFC fighter Nate Diaz is known for taking a lot of damage to the face and still being able to perform well. But in a fight against Marcus Davis, Diaz was the one dishing out a boatload of damage to Davis's face, making him look unrecognizable.
Both eyes were extremely swollen and his forehead looked like a monster from a horror film. It was a tough to watch these two stand and trade, however, they delivered great entertainment to the UFC fans watching around the world.
Diaz even broke his hand in the second round on Davis’s face. Diaz went on to choke Davis unconscious in the latter minutes of the third round to stop the beating and record another victory.
#3 Urijah Faber vs Jose Aldo
Jose Aldo is known for decapitating his opponents in the octagon.In a title match against Urijah Faber back in April of 2010, Aldo displayed some of the most devastating leg kicks we've ever seen in MMA history.
Aldo was loading up in every shot, turning his hips deep into those kicks to ensure that they would do heavy damage to the legs of Faber. The fight itself was a very entertaining to watch, but it also became painful to watch as Faber began to cringe and brace at the kicks to his battered legs in the championship rounds.
After the fight, Faber could not walk, he was on crutches for weeks and had to sit out for an extended amount of time in order for his legs to fully recover. But kudos to him, he did brave the full distance, absorbing the punishment from Aldo.
#2 Jose Aldo vs Mark Hominick
Jose Aldo defended his title against Mark Hominick at UFC 129, where those who watched witnessed one of the worst looking injuries in mixed martial arts history. Hominick was named “The Elephant Man” at the end of the fight because of the massive bruises on his forehead and all over his face.
The damage was so bad, that many questioned if he should have been allowed to fight because of the massive swelling caused by Aldo. Fans feared for Hominick’s livelihood and wanted the ref to save Hominick from himself because when the referee asked if he wanted to continue to fight, he replied with “yes.”
In-between rounds, a physician went to check Hominick’s peripheral vision and motor skills in which they were all intact. Hominick displayed great courage and perseverance to not only finish the fight but finish in a dominant position.
However, his courage did not grant him victory. Aldo won the fight by unanimous decision, even though at the end of the fight he had nothing left in the gas tank and he was in a bad position on his back.
Hominick picked up quite a few fans after this fight, everyone had great respect for him to endure such heavy damage and finish the fight with the champion. As a result, Hominick and Aldo were able to take home “fight of the night” honours for UFC 129.
#1 Jon Jones vs Chael Sonnen
Jon Jones suffered one of the worst toe injuries ever seen in the octagon. He suffered an open fracture dislocation of the big toe, in other words, he split his toe wide open across the middle. In Jon's post-fight interview, he spoke about how his adrenaline was pumping, so during the fight, he really did not feel that his toe was out of tact!
The images are gruelling to view but they are cool to see at the same time, because it's amazing that an athlete can perform with a gruesome injury like that. The best part about this situation is that Jones finished Sonnen with a first-round TKO to win the fight.
Jones landed a takedown as they were clinched against the cage and then finish Sonnen with some very aggressive ground-and-pound. Jon was rushed to the hospital after the fight to have emergency surgery to repair the battered toe.
Jon actually had the operation done in the emergency room rather than the operating room. Jon later took to Twitter to update MMA fans on the status of his toe by posting the picture below:
