In what was certainly the most bizarre martial arts story to actually have been real on April 1, MMA fighter Khetag Pliev literally lost a finger in his fight with Devin Goodale at CFFC 94. Thankfully, though, the latest update from ESPN reveals that the fighter has successfully undergone surgery to reattach the digit.
It’s unclear from the footage at what exact point the ring finger became severed from the rest of his body, but promotor Rob Haydek told ESPN that the digit had come off completely at some point in the second round after being dislocated in the first. Though there was initially some concern that the detached finger had been lost completely, it was later found inside Pliev’s glove.
As it turned out, Pliev had realized that the finger was gone and wanted to keep fighting anyway, telling ESPN, “In the second round, he caught my glove with one hand and held it. I felt my finger snapped. He kept pulling my glove and my finger snapped. We kept fighting. When the second round was finished, I see my [bone] was out in the open. I wanted to keep fighting, because I felt like I had this guy. But the doctor saw that and stopped the fight.”
Goodale was ultimately declared the winner by TKO in the second round.
Pliev, who also competed as a wrestler in the 2012 Olympics, will possibly need additional surgery to fix the finger, as the doctor told him that 50 percent of the ligament in the digit had been torn. But for now, he’s back to having all ten fingers.
