Raoni Barcelos endured one of the scariest moments in UFC history when he went down at the end of his main event fight against Raul Rosas Jr. and stayed down until medical personnel removed him from the octagon Saturday night.
The veteran Brazilian was taken to a local hospital for treatment, although what exactly happened to him is still unknown. But the terrifying moment had many fans and experts wondering if the UFC potentially just witnessed its first death in the octagon, which has never happened in the 30 plus years since the promotion’s inception.
But retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown warns that as much as we should celebrate that Barcelos was ultimately OK after the incident, the worst is eventually going to happen.
“When I first heard about it — we heard a bunch of different rumors like he had a heart attack or a stroke, an aneurysm, a seizure, all these different things — and the first thing I thought is this is the UFC’s worst nightmare,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. the Writer. “We know it’s going to happen at some point.
“Someone’s going die in there. Someone’s going to [have] a seriously life-changing injury in there. It’s absolutely amazing it hasn’t happened up to this point. This is the UFC’s worst nightmare.”
Brown was actually in attendance on Saturday night cornering his fight Josiah Harrel in his bout against Elves Brener on the prelims. By the time Barcelos fought, Brown was back in the hotel with his fighter, but he kept hearing rumors and news about what happened in the main event.
While Brown is quick to raise concerns that a serious injury or death could happen in the UFC, he also pays homage to the promotion’s medical staff for always taking due diligence with athletes before, during and after fights.
“You’ve got to give props to the UFC’s medical team,” Brown said. “The medicals they require before the fight and they work with the commissions for a long time. I’d like to give credit to the athletic commissions, but the athletic commissions are the UFC. Dr. [Jeff] Davidson, we call him ‘Dr. D’ — these guys have been on top of it.
“You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. They haven’t had any serious life-changing injuries, no deaths and it’s been more than 30 years now.”
Brown actually saw firsthand how the UFC’s medical staff steps up in moments like these after frequent teammate and training partner Mickey Gall was pulled from the event where he was originally scheduled to face Sedriques Dumas on the main card.
Brown says Gall had a medical issue that effectively forced the UFC to pull him from the event, and while it wasn’t as serious as what happened to Barcelos, he knows the promotion was only looking out for Gall’s best interests.
“This goes back to the medical [requirements] for the UFC,” Brown said. “It’s not that serious of a thing, it’s something they’ve been monitoring for a long time. It just finally crept up on him. It’s going to be a simple procedure, something he’ll come back from but they’re like ‘no, you’re not fighting, there’s something wrong with your brain.’ Credit where credit is due.”
