This is a story about secrets and those who keep them. Specifically, it’s about Daiane Silva, a Brazilian mixed martial artist who isn’t famous, and those who would have seemingly preferred it if you never knew she spent the past six weeks in a hospital bed in London.
The good news is she has finally regained consciousness, but that should not obscure a question to arise from such a distressing situation: shouldn’t a dangerous sport that has grown so rapidly be taking its responsibilities far more seriously?
Before we get there, let’s go back to the beginning of a chain of terrible events that played out in this country and had been kept quiet until a social media post crept over the wall last weekend. Chances are you still haven’t heard much about it and after investigating the matter that doesn’t feel like an accident to me.
You see, Silva, a 29-year-old with a 3-0 record, was drafted in at short notice to appear on a Bellator card at Wembley Arena on September 14.
Bellator, an American promotion, are not as prominent as the UFC but they are major players in cage fighting and their acquisition last year by the Professional Fighters League, self-styled as the ‘fastest-growing sports league worldwide’, meant this was Silva’s big break. As a single mother going by the ring name of ‘Leidy Dai’, it was the kind of opportunity that shapes lives.
Daiane Silva – who goes by the ring name Leidy Dai – has been in hospital for over a month
The 29-year-old had received a chance to step up and fight on a Bellator card at short notice
But to step up, first she had to boil down.
And that’s a key point here – Silva’s three professional contests had all been in the 155-pound lightweight category. Her journey took its awful turn to an intensive care ward when she was brought in roughly two weeks ahead of fight night to fill a spot as a featherweight, where the limit is 10 pounds less.
Now, cutting weight is nothing new in combat sports and nor are the extreme dangers of doing it too quickly. In Silva’s case and so many others, the complication went further.
To follow the reporting of a news outlet from her home state in Parana, UmDois Esportes, who are among the few to pick up this story, Silva weighed around 167 pounds when she accepted the fight. Put another way, she had barely a fortnight to shed 22 pounds. Silva knew she was up against it.
In an interview a few days before her weigh-in on September 13, she said something that takes on a far sadder look today. ‘It will hurt,’ Silva told the website MMA Fighting, and the reporter noted she was laughing. ‘It’s complicated for me, but this is the war. We’ll get there fine.’
She didn’t. In fact she didn’t even make it to the scales – on the morning of the weigh-in she collapsed and was rushed by ambulance from her hotel, the Hilton across the road from Wembley Arena, to Northwick Park Hospital, three miles away. Apparently, her dehydration was so severe she sustained kidney failure and was induced into a coma.
Promoter Bellator made almost no mention of what happened to Silva, only delivering a brief post calling off her bout
The MMA star was taken to Northwick Park Hospital just three miles from Wembley – where she was due to fight in September
None of this was known publicly until last weekend, more than a month on, when a social media post from Nação Cyborg Fights, the Brazilian outfit who promoted Silva’s debut in 2021, flagged she was in a serious condition. That post was then deleted but the news was out.
To trawl the social media accounts of Bellator and the PFL, with more than 6.5million followers combined, is to see almost no mention of what happened. The exception was one post on the Bellator feeds on the day of the weigh-in: ‘Eman Almudhaf vs. Daiane Da Silva is off the card. Card proceeds with nine fights.’
As for the PFL, there was nothing on September 13. Zilch. But the next day they did have a video of Jake Paul watching footage of a bout in which one fighter was choked so hard a jet of blood squirted out of his eyebrow – damage sells, but only the right kind of damage, it would seem.
The first I heard of Silva’s case was last Sunday afternoon when an email dropped from one of the most respected figures in combat sports. The sender requested anonymity but the message asked: ‘Why hasn’t this story been told and what is the cover-up?’
It has felt like a valid question across the past week, in which Silva’s manager, the Brazil-based Alex Davis, belatedly issued a statement confirming ‘she suffered an accident due to dehydration’ and sharing his hopes for a full recovery. He hasn’t responded to my messages.
Amid the void of information, glances have been cast at Silva’s corner team, with the most critical observation made by the Brazilian female fighter Cris Cyborg, one of the biggest names in MMA and a former stable-mate of Silva. ‘The corner didn’t follow the rules,’ she said. When I contacted Cristiano Marcello, owner of CM System, who train Silva, he described Cyborg’s comments as ‘irresponsible’ and insisted: ‘We are not responsible for athletes‘ weight loss protocol. Our recommendation is athletes look for qualified professionals to guide them in this process. This was the case of Leidy Dai.
‘Likewise, we did not mediate the signing of Leidy Dai with Bellator and we did not define any weight for the fight, nor did we make any agreement with the event in this regard.’
Silva’s compatriot and former stablemate Cris Cyborg has stressed that fault also lies with the fighter’s corner team
Hopefully the truth or inaccuracy of Cyborg’s claims can be discovered now that the cat is out of the bag. But what about the organisations who had oversight of these shows?
Hopefully the truth or inaccuracy of her claims can be discovered now that the cat is out of the bag. But what about the organisations who had oversight of these shows?
I sent a long list of questions to Bellator and the PFL this week, one of which was to probe if there was truth in a suggestion that officials had been instructed not to talk about what happened. Another of my enquiries centred on whether Silva underwent a formal check-weight in the days and weeks before she was due on the scales – it’s the measure responsible organisations use to safeguard against the last-minute weight crashes that we rarely talk about but sit at the root of many tragedies.
After chasing a few times I received a 35-word response from a PFL spokesman: ‘We are aware of Daiane Da Silva’s current medical condition and have been monitoring the situation since cancelling her fight in London. PFL is in regular contact with her team and are supporting her recovery.’
In short, they swerved what we really need to know. And the PFL co-owner, the American venture capitalist Donn Davis, offered just as little in his only appearance since the Silva news broke. The silence, he said, was down to the need to protect her ‘privacy’ and he added: ‘We’ve done everything possible to support her recovery.’
The latter might be true, but how about those check-weights that might have mitigated the risk at outset? They are a vital piece of missing information.
In boxing, a source this week detailed the protocol of the British Boxing Board of Control, who require those checks throughout a training camp. If a fighter is more than three percent outside their limit three days before the weigh-in, the bout might be cancelled. But were there any safety nets beneath Silva?
PFL co-owner Donn Davis stressed that silence had been maintained in a bid to protect her
But much of Silva’s situation remains shrouded in mystery and prove there is a need for greater clarity around the murkier side of combat sports
I asked that of Michael Mazzulli, director of the Mohegan Department of Athletic Regulation, who came over here from Connecticut to oversee the Bellator event. He was unsure if a check-weight had been held, so it remains a mystery.
What happens next is key. Fundamentally that applies most to a full recovery for the fighter recovering in Northwick Park Hospital. But Silva’s traumas also prove there is need for clarity. For detail. For lifting the veil.
There is a lawyer in the US who specialises in combat sports, Erik Magraken, and he has seen this movie before. In the past 10 years he has compiled a list of more than 100 serious injuries and deaths that have occurred in MMA because of extreme weight cuts, and he knows the same issue is rife in boxing, because fighters regularly seem to think the risk is worth it.
As he told me: ‘A terrible situation like this actually offers a teachable moment. If they are to find any good from it, it would be from transparency around what happened and why – people could learn from that.’
It feels rather a lot like an injection of logic into a conversation that too few in combat sports are willing to have.
Infantino’s Club World Cup con
The buffoon in charge of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has further undermined his Club World Cup vision by fiddling their criteria to guarantee Inter Miami’s inclusion. That means Lionel Messi, naturally.
Messi might be rated as the greatest of all time but parading him like a goat to save an irrelevant competition shows how little faith even Infantino has in his own product.
Gianni Infantino (right) has worked out a way to give Lionel Messi a starring role at FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup next summer
Maddison’s true nature revealed
It was in 2018 that Spurs rejected the chance to sign James Maddison because he had an image problem. Risk of him being a wrong ‘un, went the thinking.
If anything captured how times have changed, it was Maddison’s decision to let Richarlison take Tottenham’s penalty against AZ Alkmaar in midweek. The Brazilian simply needed it more.
Those who know Maddison always said the labels were unfair but it’s nice when word gets around.
