Rodolfo Vieria is back in the ring again in his UFC Vegas 57 middleweight match against Chris Curtis Last Saturday at UFC Apex.
“The Black Belt Hunter” Vieira assumed he’d never fight again after brain testing revealed a devastating diagnosis ahead of a January fight with Wellington Turman, revealing a congenital abnormality in his brain. It took weeks for Vieira to be cleared to continue his MMA career.
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“A lot of people asked me if I felt anything, dizziness or passed out or other things,” Vieira told MMA Fighting.
“Nothing happened. I was living my normal life. I did the MRI because it’s been four years since my last one, and I had to do it again,” Vieira continued. “And then doctors saw that deformity, and they were concerned. They were a bit scared and asked me to take more exams.”
Vieira undergoes further testing
Multiple jiu-jitsu world champion Vieira was removed from the Turman fight by the UFC after the organization requested that he conducts additional testing in Orlando and Anaheim, which “took so long,” Vieira said. As he waits for his health plan to cover the expenses meant an extra six weeks of waiting for the results, he decided to pay for the entire thing.
“When I left [and got cleared], my manager already called me asking when I wanted to fight again, so it was all worth it,” said Vieira. “Imagine waiting a month and a half for this result and not knowing what’s going on? Not really.”
In the end, Vieira received some excellent news, but he openly acknowledged that he anticipated the opposite.
“I tried to stay positive, but I thought, ‘I’m ready when the worst comes,’” said Vieira. “It was hard for me. I didn’t want to go back to jiu-jitsu because I had to teach. I said, ‘F***, I didn’t want to learn jiu-jitsu now. I’m still healthy at eight or nine years to fight and try to build something in MMA.” If you had to stop fighting at 32, that would suck.”
He then expressed how relieved he was with the result.
“It was a great relief; I was very happy with this opportunity that God has given me. He put me through this too, I don’t know, test my will to see if that’s what I really wanted, and I saw how much I wanted to continue in this sport.”
Vieira returns
After submitting Dustin Stoltzfus in Las Vegas with a rear-naked choke 11 months ago, the Brazilian middleweight returns to the cage for the first time since the fight. In the meantime, Curtis is seeking to extend his eight-winning streak after defeating Phil Hawes and Brendan Allen in his previous two appearances inside the Octagon.
Vieira never stopped training or sparring while awaiting the results of his MRI, claiming that he felt nothing unusual during the entire process or during his UFC Vegas 57 training camp.
“[UFC] already threw a killer at me,” laughed Vieira. “I said, ‘Man, the UFC wants to test my brain to see if it’s okay?’ They gave me a left-handed, dangerous knockout performer, and I said, ‘Cool, let’s do it.’ I went through a scare because of my brain. Instead of giving me a grappler, someone who doesn’t slap the feet so much so we can wrestle, do some jiu-jitsu, at least on this first back. But, ‘No, let’s see if he’s really good.”