M. da Conceição is 21 years old and has a record of 17 professional fights. Photo: Reproduction/Facebook Melk Costa Caut
Melquizael Costa da Conceição was the main character in one of the most impressive videos in recent times in MMA. The fighter faced Rafael Barbosa for the lightweight belt at the Demolidor Fight event on August 18th in São Paulo. 'Melk' was blacked out for two minutes in a chokehold until referee Emerson Saez stopped it. After going through this difficult situation, Pará forgave the event judge.
“Actually, I have no resentment towards the referee and I do forgive him. Not just talking to him, but to other people, you have to pay attention to your work, because it's complicated... I don't know the referee, I haven't spoken to him yet. I saw that he sent me a message asking for forgiveness and everything. I have no problem with him as a person. As an athlete, my coaches and manager are seeing what will happen, they are resolving all legal issues. I'm happy to be alive and thank God, apparently and physically, I don't have any after-effects or anything”, explained Melquizael to the website “Tatame”.
In the video, Melquizael was blacked out for 2m6s until the referee interrupted him. The fighter revealed that he remained in the same situation for another ten minutes.
“It was the worst feeling of my life, I thought I was going to die when I woke up. I've blacked out other times and come back normal, there are people who come back crashing, but I've always come back normal. This time, because I was blacked out for a long time, when I came back, I saw people and couldn't breathe or move my body. I could only move my eye and hand, I tried to breathe and I couldn't. I saw people calling me and then my breathing slowly started to come back. I don't know if it was the doctor who put on the breathing mask, but I despaired and couldn't breathe. Then, my doctor took it off and said they put the mask on and didn't turn on the oxygen, which was suffocating me,” said Melk.
After the 'scare', the 21-year-old athlete guarantees that he will not give up on a career that has 17 fights with 15 wins and three losses.
“I'm a very young athlete, but I started training when I was 14 and training with professional MMA guys, getting beat up since I started. The first punch I took, I was knocked out and I was out for a long time. I started getting hit early and that made me stronger. I debuted in MMA when I was 17, I basically have four and a half years of MMA. I've fought a lot of big guys, tough guys. It’s not a fight like that that will shake me or make me give up because I have a long career ahead of me, that’s for sure”, concluded the fighter.
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