Travis Lutter
Former UFC fighter Travis Lutter’s career came to a premature end in 2010 following a fight with Rafael Natal in the short-lived Moosin promotion.
Perhaps Lutter shouldn’t have fought at all that night as in his last training session before the bout he had suffered a ‘stinger’ – a feeling like a jolt of electricity that runs down the arm as the result of nerves in the neck being compressed.
Despite it being the worst he’d experienced, Lutter still fought, and the next night he soon regretted it.
“As I got hit in that fight, I knew I was in trouble,” Lutter told Sherdog. “My neck was real bad.”
It was too late to turn back now though and late in the first round of the fight Lutter was dropped by punches from Natal, with follow-up ground and blows sealing a knockout stoppage victory.
It wasn’t a knockout that seemed particularly out of the ordinary at the time, but it had a lasting impact as Lutter told MMAjunkie several years later than afterwards his neck, “just never felt right.”
That would lead to Lutter having to undergo major surgery for a three-level fusion in his neck.
Worse still, doctor’s also discovered that he had previously suffered a fractured vertebrae earlier in his career that had previously gone undiagnosed.
Lutter waited two years in the hope that the damage would heal, but by that stage he was 39 and was still suffering neck pain, leading to his decision to hang up his gloves for good.
