Rafael Dos Anjos Went Through Serious Health Scare Before Last Fight

MMA

Former UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael Dos Anjos last competed in the co-main event of UFC Fight Night Raleigh, suffering a unanimous decision loss.

While the loss was a downer for the former champion, a pre-fight trip to the infrared sauna gave Dos Anjos a pretty serious health scare.

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“My last fight, Chiesa did a great job,” Dos Anjos told MMA Junkie. “He’s a tough guy, nice guy though, but I fought so bad. I did something bad in my weight cut. I decided to cut the rest of my weight, like the rest of the eight pounds that I had, I decided to do a different type of sauna. I usually do exercise, but I decided to do infrared sauna because I found a little gym by the side of the hotel in Raleigh, and they had an infrared sauna, and I felt kind of weird. It took me like 10 minutes to break the sweat, and once I broke the sweat, it took me like 30 minutes. I did like 30 minutes, and by the time I got home, that was Thursday night, I felt overheated. Over the night, I felt so much headache, and I couldn’t sleep. I was so overheated, and I had to do an ice bath right after weigh-ins, and my body was overheated and I found out later on that these infrared saunas, they heat you inside out. They go right in the middle of your cells; they heat from inside out. I go five rounds with no problem, but for that fight, after the first round, I was pretty much done. I had no energy. That was pretty weird, and I think that was the infrared sauna that messed me up.”

Dos Anjos made it through UFC Fight Night Raleigh and was even in the running to face former UFC Welterweight Champion Tyron Woodley as a late replacement on the now postponed UFC Fight Night London card.

There is no word at this time as to when Dos Anjos plans on competing again, but the fighter has won just one of his last five under the UFC banner.

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