There were several major injuries at UFC 308 last night, including former lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos suffering fight-ending knee damage before Robert Whittaker’s jaw was crushed by Khamzat Chimaev.
Yet the strangest injury of all happened on the UFC 308 prelims when popular heavyweight Chris Barnett seemingly injured himself by bouncing up and down during Bruce Buffer’s introductions.
Heavyweight Chris Barnett says he wasn’t injured during UFC 208 intros
Even before he’d entered the octagon for his fight on the UFC 308 prelims last night, Chris Barnett was having a whale of a time as he danced and sang his way all the way to the cage doors.
That energy followed through into Bruce Buffer’s introductions, but quickly dissipated after the opening bell as Barnett appeared to be suffering from an issue with his ankle.
The commentary team initially speculated that Barnett was limping due to a series of powerful calf kicks landed by opponent Kennedy Nzechukwu in the opening exchange, before hypothesizing that the injury occurred before the fight itself.
Upon showing the replay of the fight introductions, the commentary team hazarded a guess that Barnett had injured himself when he performed a tuck-jump as Buffer bellowed out his name.
Unsurprisingly, that story was picked up by a string of media outlets, including Bloody Elbow; however, Barnett has now come out to call BS on the whole situation.
Just this morning, Barnett shared a screenshot of an MMA Mania article about the injury, claiming in the caption that the story was “Fake News” and that he actually got hurt when he threw a “spinning hook kick” early in round one.
To their credit, Paul Felder and Daniel Cormier later acknowledged on the broadcast that the injury could have been caused by the kick as it appeared as though Barnett’s knee hyperextended as he turned.
Despite the stoppage loss, Barnett remains one of the most popular fighters in the entire heavyweight division; as evidenced by the countless messages of support for the excitable ‘Beastboy’.
“Win or lose, always bringing the entertainment Chris! Hope you have a speedy recovery,” wrote one fan, with another adding “Stay strong, speedy recovery and back to kicking butt soon!”
“You’ll always be the most entertaining awesome fighter around. Was so hyped seeing you back in action, hope you heal up even better this time and come back even stronger.”