News broke in October of 2024 that Brazilian fighter Daiane Silva had been in a comatose state for multiple weeks after she fainted due to weight cut complications ahead of her scheduled Bellator fight on September 14th.
The Professional Fighter’s League, owners of Bellator, caught flak online for not addressing the situation publicly since the news came out weeks after the incident and they did not immediately comment.
However, Silva’s manager Alexis Davis made an announcement that the PFL/Bellator brass were helpful during the crisis, telling MMA Junkie that they paid her fight purse and flew in family from Brazil to be with her at the hospital in England.
Daiane had suffered kidney failure as a result of dehydrative weight cut techniques while trying to get down to 146 pounds. She had previously only competed one weight class up, at lightweight.
Thankfully, ‘Leidy Dai’ has woken up and is expected to make a full recovery after several weeks in a coma. Even better, she is also healthy enough that she traveled back home to Parana, Brazil to rest and recover further.
MMA Fighting first broke the news, reporting that Davis told them on Monday, “The first prognosis we had was that she could be with dialysis for the rest of her life and it could take months for her to regain consciousness, but [that will not be the case] thanks to a lot of different factors like a very, very good friend of hers was an angel that stayed with her all the time and thanks to her very good physical shape and the help of the hospital and the doctors, thanks to the support of Bellator [and others].”
Silva improved to 3-0 and won the Iron Man MMA women’s lightweight championship in Brazil in 2023 which earned the 29-year-old the opportunity to make her Bellator Champions Series debut, where she was favored against undefeated British fighter Eman Almudhaf.
Hopefully ‘Leidy Dai’ will be able to get back to full health and return to her career, if she still wants to pursue MMA after this health scare.
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