Wellington Turman was scheduled to face Sean Strickland next month at UFC Fight Night: Hall vs. Silva, but that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.
Combate is reporting that Turman, as well as some of his teammates at the Gile Ribeiro Team, had tested positive for the coronavirus.
“I was in bad shape for two weeks, in really bad shape, with fever and pain to the body and chest, a bit of shortness of breath,” Turman said to MMA Fighting. “I missed two weeks of camp — I mean, I can say I missed the entire camp if I stayed in bed for two weeks, right? I’m doing light training now, nothing heavy, and thank God I’m getting better. But it was rough.”
Turman’s teammates in Rogerio Bontorin and Augusto Sakai, plus two cornerman who worked Sakai’s fight against Alistair Overeem all tested positive for COVID-19.
Coach Gile Ribeiro believes that a cold spell that hit Curitiba, Brazil in the last few days caused a lot of the issues.
“It caught us by surprise because we were being careful for this fight,” Ribeiro said. “But we had an outbreak the last few days in Curitiba because of the cold weather and ended up contaminated even though we were taking all the precautions.”
Bontorin’s grandparents, whom the fighter was living with, also passed away due to COVID-19.
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