Alex Oliveira Had a Christmas to Remember For All of the Wrong Reasons… He Was Involved in a Street Altercation That Ended With Him Nearly Losing His Leg to an Actual Grenade…
‘Cowboy’ Oliveira provided MMA fans with one of the goriest moments of the 2018 UFC year, when he had his head split open with a vicious elbow from Gunnar Nelson. It gushed with blood like a leaky faucet, leading to over 20 stitches, in what was a fairly traumatic moment for everyone watching.
The Brazilian fighter has had a stop-start career so far. He’s struggled with consistency. Despite being able to beat anybody on his day – thanks to his long, lanky frame and excellent BJJ skills, he seems to win two, lose one, win two and lose one. This lack of momentum keeps him as a ranked fighter but prevents him from going on a title run.
You’d think he’d like a quiet Christmas after a fight that nearly opened his head up and showed the world his brains. Now though, he’s released a spectacular and insane story of how he nearly lost his leg to a grenade, this Christmas.
Grenade
The Rio de Janeiro native explained exactly what went down, in an interview with TV Rio Sul in Brazil. He said:
“It was a good night, you know? But there are a lot of people in our family who do not like to enjoy Christmas. I went out to feed my mother’s car , and on the way I saw my aunt in confusion. I told my aunt not to interfere, I just stopped to try to ease the stop. Because when you have a fighter involved in confusion, you know, right?
One guy already got a gun in my nephew’s face. Then began a push-push. The guys were with a machete, a knife, a grenade. And they threw the grenade at me. He flew fragments on my leg, on my foot. They opened my leg to take out the shrapnel, they got the point … I’ve got my leg bandaged here with a bandage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrvBKtprSI
Tough as Nails
Oliveira is tough. You can see from the footage above just how bad that elbow was as his head just bursts open and spurts blood. The referee was going to stop this fight either way, but Nelson was able to hold his composure and go in and get the finish.
‘Cowboy’ has a reputation for being a bad motherf**er. Before fighting professionally he worked as a rodeo rider in Rio de Janeiro, as well as being a construction worker. Those are some tough trades to be involved in. Oliveira might not ever win a title, but he’s tough as nails.
Lucky
In all seriousness though, Oliveira is incredibly lucky to be able to talk about these events so flippantly. He got attacked by a grenade. Let’s repeat that: he got attacked by a grenade. While it’s absolutely insane that this happened, the consequences could have been so much worse.
He could have lost a limb or been incapacitated by the explosive, ending his fighting career. Fortunately, that is not the case and the Brazilian will be able to continue his fighting career. Merry Christmas ‘Cowboy,’ you absolute madman.
