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Ring and cage entrances are one of the many ways athletes can find moments for unique expression in combat sports. Fans may remember the big knockouts and amazing submissions, but we also remember Wanderlei Silva rolling his fists back and forth, Clay Guida getting slapped around by his brother, or Jon Jones crawling into the cage on all fours. Every second the camera is on a fighter is a chance to do something memorable.
The thing about being memorable is, that it’s not always the same as being great.
MMA fighter Miguelito Grijalva busted his knee during main event intro
Fusion FC 64 went down in Lima, Peru this week, delivering seven pro bouts worth of MMA action, along with two amateur bouts way down on the prelims. When all was said and done, however, one major piece of the event had gone missing. The featherweight main event between Martin Mollinedo and Miguel Grijalva had to be cancelled seconds away from the opening bell.
The tragedy struck during Grijalva’s entry to the cage, when the 22-year-old Ecuadorian fighter took a lap around the fence on his way to his corner, before hopping straight up into the air and landing with a heavy stomp. A stomp that apparently completely shredded one of his knees.
Talk about not believing a fight is really going to happen until both men are already in the cage.
It’s a terrible injury no matter the circumstances, but has to feel especially brutal for the 8-0 Grijalva, who has (by Tapology’s count) had eight cancelled fights int he last three years. No word yet as to the severity of the injury or when he might be expected to be fit for competition again.
Tom Aspinall returns from shock knee injury this Saturday
Perhaps somewhat unfortunately, all things considered, Tom Aspinall’s knee held up just long enough for his fight against Curtis Blaydes to be registered as an official loss. The top-ranked UFC heavyweight tore his MCL just 15 seconds into the main event of UFC London on July 23 of 2022. Almost one year later, to the day, he returns to action this Saturday with another main event booking against Marcin Tybura.
“I can’t wait to fight just so I’m not the guy with the bad knee anymore,” Aspinall said of his knee in a recent interview with ESPN. “I’m sick of speaking about it. For the last year, people have been stopping me on the street every day, asking, ‘How’s the knee?’ And now that the fight is coming up, it’s every interview. … I can’t wait to never speak about it again.”
Even if he’s tired of talking about it though, Aspinall has also admitted that the injury actually has ended up being good for his career, since it’s made him change a lot of bad habits that he was ignoring during his successful fighting run.
“Everything was moving so smoothly before, but there were a lot of things wrong that I didn’t want to change because everything was going so smoothly,” Aspinall explained. “Before, I was training four hours a day and the other 20 hours I was living just like a regular person. I wasn’t living the life of a professional athlete. I feel like I definitely needed some adversity. It was just all too easy for me.”
UFC London takes place on July 22nd at the O2 Arena. Alongside the heavyweight main event, the card features a top flight featherweight action bout between Nathaniel Wood and Andre Fili, as well as a ranked women’s bantamweight fight between Ketlen Vieira and Pannie Kianzad.
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