The undefeated Bellator middleweight champion Rafael Lovato Jr. MMA career may be in question. On an episode of Joe Rogan’s “JRE MMA Show,” Lovato revealed he is dealing with a brain disease called Cavernoma. The Mayo Clinic states that this brain disease causes “abnormally formed blood vessels” that can develop and create problems in the spinal cord or brain.
Lovato Jr. spoke openly about finding out about the issue prior to his fight with Gegard Mousasi for the Bellator middleweight championship at Bellator 223 on June 22, 2019, in London, England. On the episode which was transcribed by MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn, Lovato Jr. met with a radiologist for a brain scan to get clearance for the fight and Lovato said “The radiologist, with really no candor or an easy or soft way of saying it, was like, ‘Dude, have you seen your brain before? There’s some stuff in here you need to see.’ He pulls me into the room and shows me on the screen, pointing out what looked like little balls. It looked like something was wrong – not a normal scan. But I don’t know – like shades of discoloration. You could see that it wasn’t normal. He didn’t even know what it was at the time.”
Lovato Jr. dealt with the reality that he might not have been able to fight, while still trying to stay ready for the fight if he can get cleared. He went to Brazil to finish out his training and met with “Neurologists and specialists” in Brazil to get more opinions on whether it will be safe for him to fight. They all came back with the same conclusion that he shouldn’t fight, which Lovato felt that “Fighting already isn’t good for your brain you know what I mean. Getting hit in the head isn’t good for your brain. And I think just looking at it when you see it and you know I’m going to get hit in the head and what I do, your automatically going to be like ‘Hey you know theirs already this extra bit of danger that we are putting into a dangerous situation. Let’s not play. Let’s not roll the dice.'” Around this time, Lovato Jr. was also dealing with a hamstring injury, that he says in the interview still bothers him today.
With the revelation of his brain disease, the fear of his health and the worry that he won’t be able to compete for the championship Lovato Jr. was going through a difficult time. Lovato went to see one more doctor in Brazil and this time the doctor gave him a different response then the other doctors. Lovato Jr. felt the doctor “captivated” him by his composure and that this doctor was the first time ask him “How does he feel.” After an evaluation, the doctor told him “Let me just see what I can find, but I guarantee I’m not going to find anything that says head impact or trauma is going to increase your risk of Covanorma bleeding.”
Lovato Jr. says that the doctor did his research and found nothing. The doctor then said, “You can bleed you, you know. You can be oozing blood at any point in time, little by little and it can become an issue at some point in time. But theirs is no treatment, we are not going to do surgery. There is nothing that is going to happen until you have symptoms and until you show signs. And because I can’t find any studies that say getting hit in the head will make it worse and because you are a normal functioning person at this point, I think it’s fine for you to fight.”
The doctor gave Lavato Jr. a letter that helped him and ultimately he was approved two weeks before the fight.
Lovato Jr. beat Mousasi by majority decision to win the Bellator middleweight championship and improving his MMA record to 10-0. He hasn’t fought since then, but he hasn’t officially retired yet. When speaking on his status in the interview Lovato said, “I’m not officially retiring. I am sort of I guess indefinitely on the sidelines right now. I am actively seeing more doctors and working towards learning more about this(Cavernorma).”
Bellator made a statement regarding the status of Lovato Jr. and the middleweight championship to MMA Junkie. Bellator says they are working with Lovato Jr. to figure out what’s next and “That he remains the Bellator middleweight champion, and no decision has been made regarding the title or the future of the 185-pound division.” Lovato still has hopes to continue his MMA career. If he can’t get approved to fight again, he is okay with not fighting. “If it’s really unsafe and I’m not going to get approved ever, I finally got to a place to accept that. I’m going to move forward on with my life teaching and doing what I do.”