This may be one of the worst injuries ever suffered by a MMA fighter.
What happened to Hunter Boone on Saturday night was something straight out of a horror movie.
The amateur fighter fought at Martial Combat League 3 in Shawnee, Oklahoma at the FireLake Arena, where he met Jordan Brown. According to reports from those in attendance, the lightweight contest ended in 17 seconds after Brown appeared to go for a takedown and Boone slammed into an exposed cage bracket that immediately tore open the top of his head (h/t Eric Kowal of MyMMANews). Moments after, Brown was declared the winner by first-round technical knockout.
Jason Greer — head coach of 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Altus — was cornering Boone and took to Facebook to explain how the gruesome injury occurred.
“A few seconds after the bell rung Hunter and his opponent spun into the cage,” wrote Greer. “His opponent had a collar tie and as they hit the fence Hunter’s head slammed into the gate resulting in Hunter suffering a 20 centimeter gash across the front of his hairline from the left to the right, down the right side and towards the back basically scalping him. It knocked him unconscious immediately but he had regained consciousness before he hit the ground.
“Knowing he had just received a fight ending blow he started scrambling from the cocoon with the idea of a triangle,” continued Greer. “Fighting for the win against all odds! I had no idea in the moment what had even happened after the ref stopped the fight and immediately called for the Doctor. I was so confused and Hunter looked at me and whispered ‘Damnit man...It’s over.’ I rushed in the cage and for the first time I saw how [devastating] his injury was.”
Boone has shared photos of the injury, which can be seen below. The ‘Alpha Wolf’ received 17 staples and is already recovering.
WARNING: PHOTOS ARE GRAPHIC. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
Video of the incident was posted on Reddit by Axton Boone, brother of Hunter.
Boone and his team have since blamed the cage for the injury but the promotion has released a statement that said it was inspected before and after the event, and nothing was found out of order. MCL has also said they are still unsure as to how and why the injury happened.
Despite the unfortunate ending of Boone vs. Brown, MCL 3 continued on with the rest of its scheduled fights.
“We’d like to address the incident that occurred during a fight at last nights event,” wrote MCL. “We understand and appreciate everyone’s concern on what happened and our hearts are with the individual who was injured in this incident. We were in just as much shock as anyone when this occurred. We assembled our cage no differently than we have for each of our previous events. It is our understanding that the sanctioning commission of the event inspected the cage prior to the show. No issues with the cage where brought to our attention by the sanctioning commission.
“There was a very unfortunate event that occurred during a takedown near the the door of our cage. How the injury occurred is still undetermined and there was no clear sign as to what or why this injury took place. After the cage was cleared of the incident, our cage was fully inspected by multiple individuals of the sanctioning commission and our cage was deemed necessary to continue. We don’t have an answer as to why this injury occurred and we’re, without a doubt, extremely sorry to the individual who suffered this injury.”
There is no word on whether Boone will return and fight again. The 28-year-old has an overall record of 2-2, with his two wins coming by way of first-round stoppage.
