UFC

Violence and bloodshed: UFC fighter cut artery and lost 20 percent (!) of his blood in the cage

Published

December 19, 2022

Rafa Garcia (right) and Hayisaer Maheshate (left) fought a gruelling fight at UFC Vegas 66. Photo via Twitter (UFC News)

At past Saturday’s UFC event, lightweight Rafa Garcia suffered a deep cut that hit an artery in his fight against Hayisaer Maheshate.

Garcia was able to pull through and eventually came to win via unanimous decision with 30-27 on the scorecards.

However, during the ESPN+ post-fight show, the tough lightweight claimed that he lost a lot of blood during the fight.

“They told me I lost 20 percent of my blood,” Garcia said. “I got a cut artery. They told me they had never seen that before. When they were stitching me up, Cub told me ‘Sit down and just chill because you lost 20 percent of your blood, chill a little bit.’”

Garcia’s teammate and cornerman Cub Swanson posted on Twitter that it took the medical staff a lot of work and time to stop the severe bleeding.

Rafa Garcia had a cut artery on his head. It took the UFC medical staff almost two hours to get it to stop bleeding. He is ok now 🙏🏽 #UFCVegas66 pic.twitter.com/YoIv6cjzBi

— Cub Swanson (@CubSwanson) December 18, 2022

The bloodshed made Rafa Garcia keep pushing

Rafa Garcia also said his biggest concern was what officials thought of the damage and blood on the side of his head. The lightweight eventually needed 15 stitches to close the cut.

“With the ref and the judges, you never know,” Garcia said. “I mean, with the way they judge it, sometimes they see too much blood, they’ll give ‘em a round or stop the fight, you just never know, you know? So that made me just keep pushing, trying to make a statement.”