Russian Grappler Paralyzed In BJJ Match Injury

A Russian BJJ competitor has suffered a horrific injury as a result of a grappling match. The video below shows the full match and exactly how the injury occurred, of course this is not for the faint-hearted and we give you fair warning now that the injury itself is quite gruesome. The incident occurred at a No Gi grappling competition in St. Petersburg, Russia at the Universal Fighters Open Cup on February 11th and the injured party was a 26 year old man by the name of Payzutdin Aliyev.

As you can see from the above video, it was not long after the start of the match when Aliyev attempted a Flying Armbar. As his opponent pulled away and released Aliyev’s grip on his arm, he then landed directly on his neck on the matted area. According to The Sun, Aliyev was immediately rushed to hospital where doctors found that he had several injuries including a fracture of his cervical vertebrae and some damage to his Spinal Cord as a result of the fall. The image below is of a CT scan taken at the hospital which shows the extent of the damage to Aliyev’s neck. Apart from the fractured vertebrae, the full scan also showed significant brain trauma, a brain contusion and a closed craniocerebral trauma. The injury suffered in this BJJ match has led to Aliyev being permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

BJJ injury xray

The injured grappler is actually from Dagestan, the same region as UFC Lightweight Champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov. As a result, The Dagestani Sports Ministry made the following comment: “No one in our life is safe from accidents. Aliyev received a severe spinal injury and now he needs financial assistance.” and a fundraising campaign has been set up in order to help Aliyev.

Alex Lindsey

Alex Lindsey is the managing editor here at Grappling Insider. Originally starting training in MMA in 2008, injuries and university slowed progress until he decided to put on a gi for the first time back in 2015.

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