It’s been a scary Christmas for UFC fighter Alex Oliveira, who survived a grenade attack on Christmas Eve in his native Brazil.
Brazil’s Alex Oliveira suffered a very scary injury Christmas Eve. According to a report by TV Rio Sul (via Globo), ‘Cowboy’ Oliveira had gone out to gas up his mother’s car when he came across members of his own family in an altercation with several unknown assailants. Oliveira stopped the vehicle, no doubt to help, when a grenade was thrown at him. The resulting blast saw shrapnel embedded in his leg and foot, which later required surgery to remove.
“One guy already got a gun in my nephew’s face,” Oliveira told the news outlet (translation via Google Translate). That led to some shoving back and forth. “The guys were with a machete, a knife, a grenade. And they threw the grenade at me.” He wound up with “fragments in my leg, in my foot.”
Witnesses recalled hearing a loud explosion in the Rua Direita neighborhood. Oliveira maintains a residence nearby.
Luckily, Oliveira (19–6–1 (2)) escaped worse injury or even death. The welterweight has been competing in the UFC since 2015, initially in the lightweight division. Most recently, he was defeated by Gunnar Nelson at UFC 231 in Toronto.
