Name: JRE MMA Show #89 with Rafael Lovato Jr
Uploaded: 2020-01-29T20:00:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'JRE MMA Show #89 with Rafael Lovato Jr' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-01-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'JRE MMA Show #89 with Rafael Lovato Jr' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-01-29. Transcript available.

JRE MMA Show #89 with Rafael Lovato Jr

three two all right what's up how are you brother i'm doing great it's great to
be back great to
see you man congratulations on winning the title appreciate that fantastic
achievement i mean
beating gegar mousasi who's you know top flight one of the best in the in the
sport for sure
and to beat him and win the bellator middleweight title that's got to make you
feel happy it was
surreal it was something else and when you hear the story about everything um
man it takes it to
another level yeah well this is why you're here um we're here to talk about
that um and why don't
just i guess you should probably just explain what's going on well um i guess i'll
just kind of
take you through the the order of events here um you know uh that was my 10th
fight fighting for the
bellator title and uh in all my other nine fights previously it was never
required for me to get a
to get a brain scan done um just due to the to the different states that i was
fighting at the time
the commissions there didn't require it um in the u.s it's california new york
and then europe um you
know requires a brain scan we were originally scheduled to fight um in january
at the forum
in california um the same event that just happened this past saturday night um
and so we were going to
fight 2019 at the forum in january and that fight got postponed uh musasi was
injured and we eventually
got rescheduled to fight in june in london um so i already had a brain scan
scheduled um for december
to get approved for that fight in january but i got the news about the fight
getting canceled um like
the week of that scan a couple days before so i canceled it i said i don't need
to go get that done now
um and so fast forward you know i basically stayed in camp the whole year uh
training you know with
that fight on my mind all the way from november when i started the first camp
for the fight in january
you know into the new year uh waiting for the the new date um and it was march
that uh that i got the
word that we were going to fight in june in london um and so you know i was
basically training all year
and i just picked right back up into camp and um fast forward um on into the
very beginning of may
um i was you know already a good month into like the serious camp um and i was
just getting ready to
fly to brazil uh to get into the you know the hardest phase of camp i was going
to be there for
three weeks and i had to get my mri done you know and i wanted to get it done
before i went to brazil
uh just to check it off the list um so this was actually uh the week i had um i
had two good buddies
of mine um jake mapes and sam alvey uh were in oklahoma uh training with me and
uh we had a great week
of training everything's going really really well and um and it's thursday and
so i go get my brain
scan done to get that done um before i went to brazil and i'm in there and you
know we're we get
through the whole process and the machine is done it's not you know operating
anymore but they haven't
called me out of the room yet and i could kind of just sense something was
going on um so finally
they say okay come on out and the radiologist with really no like no uh candor
or or like like an easy
soft way of saying it was like dude uh have you seen your brain before um there's
some stuff in here
you need to see and he you know pulls me into the room and shows me on the on
the screen he's like
pointing out these uh you know look like little balls um uh obviously it looked
like something was
wrong it didn't look like a normal scan but i'm not i don't know you know balls
like like shades of
of um you know discoloration like according to the the scan itself like you
could see that
you know it wasn't normal um and he didn't even know what it was at the time
and he was like uh let
me let me look this over tonight uh and i had my paper you know to get signed
off that everything
looks clear and normal and you know and he was just like you know he asked me
if i had any concussions
and um if i've had any issues and i said no no and he's like well this doesn't
look right and
you shouldn't be doing what you're doing i'm like okay so are you gonna sign
this paper and he's like
no and he's like come back tomorrow and i'm gonna give you some more
information i said okay
so i go back friday um and he tells me that you know he did some research and
he believes that i have
a disease called cavernoma um and you know he kind of hits me with that um i
had no idea what cavernoma
was um and you know he says look i'm not signing this paper um you need to go
see a specialist
and get this looked at but as far as i know you should not fight you know you
should not be fighting
and then the next morning i fly to brazil um for my camp you know to to go down
there for
the the hard sparring and everything that i like to do you know stuff we talked
about last time
and so i'm like going i'm you know in the airport getting ready to go to brazil
for this portion of
my camp for this fight that is like the biggest fight of my life you know i've
already waited an extra
six months for it i've been training for it all year and at this point i'm like
just in shock of
what is going on my health and you know i saw my googling everything that i can
about cavernoma and
trying to to understand what it is and basically it's a disease where probably
like i probably got
it from one of my parents it's a it's normally a hereditary disease and your
brain forms these extra
blood vessels um and these blood vessels grow and they can accumulate and sort
of bundle up together
into balls um almost like like like weeds or vines you know they they wrap up
together
and um these blood vessels are very prone to bleeding um now they don't bleed
so much in in a in a
instance where you know they could cause a hemorrhage it's more like a slow
that they use the term oozing
effect so it oozes blood out over time um very little uh little by little and
as they accumulate
you know those balls um are very you know much more susceptible to to bleeding
and you know reading
about it while i'm getting ready to go you know i'm flying to brazil i'm in the
airport i'm taking off
um you know there's so many like extreme cases of this disease where people
have to have multiple
surgeries to get them removed um you know seizures vision issues uh people
going to comas and then of
course worst worst case is even death and you know obviously googling and you
know not talking to a
specialist and just kind of doing my own thing is not the best way to to get in
for information and so
i just have all these thoughts running in my head about you know what i'm
dealing with in my health and
i'm like okay uh now i'm going to you know uh brazil to you know train and spar
and and i have this fight
and i'm uh right now i don't have anyone signing off on this paper you know is
this going to happen
what's going on like all these questions and um so i get there and you know at
this point the only one
that knows is um my girl you know and i'm confiding in her and i'm just like
talking to her and you know
she's shocked i've never had any issues i don't even really get headaches i've
never been knocked out
um you know there's never been a time in my life where i thought man i should
get my head looked at
you know i think something could be wrong you know and so um you know i'm
talking with her and then i
have my coach mauricio uh he's my head um mma coach and my muay thai teacher um
and he goes with me
down to to kutichiba and we train there at his brother's academy andre dita at
dita's academy
evolución thai and you know we fly saturday arrive sunday start training monday
and i'm just like i'm
trying to train this first day and i'm just like what am i doing you know and i'm
getting hit in the
head and i'm like man am i slowly killing myself right here like you know what
am i training for
at this point i'm not gonna i'm not approved like what what am i gonna do you
know and um and so we
we talk it over and we're like okay obviously we need to get more opinions you
know um and i'm down
in brazil for three weeks um basically all of may um the fight was june 21st um
or 23rd something like
that and um and so i'm spending all of may there um so i need to see some brazilian
doctors some
doctors down here in kutichiba and so we just begin the process um let's get a
prescription
do you speak portuguese i'm i'm not 100 fluent but i can get around i can do
pretty well on my own
down there just from all the trips that i've done over the years um so you know
thankfully maricio his
brother dita um they have so many connections down there um you know uh being
who they are
and the history that they have um you know teaching martial arts you know you
get to know everybody
right and so they were able to make things happen quick for me um uh we saw a
doctor got a prescription
for another mri get scheduled to get that mri done which happens on friday the
end of my first week
there so i'm going that whole week training you know trying to stay positive um
but i'm wondering
you know what you know what am i doing what's going on you know what i mean
like yeah i i can't
i can't begin to describe the the thoughts and emotions i can't imagine that i
mean it'd be so
distracting during sparring as well oh yes yes and you know they go harder down
there um to put it
mildly yeah yeah that place is known for like some of the most ruthless killers
to ever come out of
brazil 100 i mean 100 that's uh shoot the box exactly yeah um i'm not sleeping
well i'm you know i'm
i'm i'm emotional wreck basically i'm calling my girl uh over face time um you
know multiple times a
day we're looking at each other on the screen i'm crying i'm confiding in maricio
and shanji hiberto
was also there with me um i had an airbnb with shanji um so thankfully i wasn't
on my own 24 7
outside of the academy maricio always stays with his family and um you know i'm
just like man when shanji
arrived um that monday or tuesday and i tell him what's going on i'm just like
dude i'm a mess right
now like uh i i don't know you know i i'm just so uncertain of of my health and
what's going on and
and uh you know like i man i i just can't put into words right now but i'm
trying to stay positive i'm
trying to stay positive and we get through that first week get the mri the new
mri down there in
brazil um so then we have you know the brazilian mri to take to brazilian
doctors and so then the
the second week we start seeing neurologists and um you know specialists to get
their opinion and um
and see what they have to say and that was the hardest week ever because um
multiple doctors were all saying no um you know when you look at the scan right
off the bat it just
like it it doesn't look good you know when you have a picture of it uh man
actually i don't have
sorry i don't have one with me right now um but uh you know you just see these
gray like
little shades of circles like in a lot of them well i have multiple and most of
them are very small
um like popcorn size and you know those aren't that dangerous at least yet but
there is one accumulation
on the back side of my the right side of my head um you know back here and that
has built up and uh and
it looks it looks big um like how big um probably probably uh like somewhere
between a like a baseball
size like golf golf ball to baseball um in between there jesus um it's it's
pretty big um but it's on the
very outer rim um so it's not like in the middle of my brain it's on the
outside you know so if you
were to go right through my head it could be right there you know you could
essentially pull it out
without having to go through too much stuff um is that something that might
actually have to happen
no not not now not now um i'll fast forward you know uh to the doctors i end up
seeing here in the
states who clarify a lot of this but um that's but the doctors in brazil all
say the same thing
well they're kind of just i mean you know fighting already isn't good f