MMA remains one of the most bizarre sports on the planet for a number of reasons. Most notably, though, some of the craziest injuries tend to happen when combatants are punching and kicking with partially covered four-ounce gloves.
The latest bits of these injuries comes to us from Cage Fury Fighting Championships. Khetag Pilev faced Devin Goodale and between the second and third rounds, Pilev and his corner seemed to notice something was wrong. That something was that his right ring finger was missing. Yes, a person seemed to misplace one of his own fingers. The fight was called off once officials noticed the injury.
Warning: the image is graphic in nature.
Pilev was taken to the emergency room for immediate surgery. He told ESPN in an interview that doctors told him he tore 50% of his tendon off the finger.
It’s still unclear as to how the finger became dislodged from its socket, as Goodale noted he didn’t remember it coming off at all. Goodale was declared the winner by TKO after this incident. Pilev believes the finger broke in a grappling exchange in the first round.
“In the second round, he caught my glove with one hand and held it,” Pliev said in an interview with ESPN. “I felt my finger snapped. He kept pulling my glove and my finger snapped. We kept fighting. When the second round was finished, I see my [bone] was out in the open. I wanted to keep fighting, because I felt like I had this guy. But the doctor saw that and stopped the fight. “
CM Punk, who was calling the event for Fight Pass, couldn’t believe what took place either.
“I don’t understand exactly what happened,” Punk said. “We’re not gonna replay it for you, ladies and gentlemen, but it wasn’t a compound fracture. It wasn’t a dislocation, a break, a laceration. His finger was just gone. It’s gone. It fell off, ripped off.”