A UFC fighter has posted a shocking video that shows how he nearly lost three fingers in a fight with gang members.
Jared Gordon, a mixed martial artist who competes in the UFC's lightweight division, was left with injuries to his hand and 21 stitches after fighting off members of the Crips gang in the street after he was attacked in Queens, New York City, reports the Daily Mail.
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As you can see in the video above, Gordon is chatting in the street with an acquaintance and a third man, Jeffery Gallardo, to whom he used to teach jiu-jitsu, sipping a coffee.
Two hooded men walk past them, with one of them spitting in Gallardo's face before then swinging a punch him.
Gordon's friend intervenes to challenge the two assailants, with Gordon wrestling the one that threw the initial punch out of shot with the friend takes down the second attacker. A shop window is broken as the four brawl across the street.
"That's when I jumped him," Gordon said to martial arts website Bloody Elbow. "We all started fighting. My friend starts fighting the other kid, and they bumped into me and the kid I was fighting. We hit the storefront window, and the whole thing came down on us."
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Gordon said that he and his friend won the fight and then called the police, but did not press charges against them.
Police reviewed the CCTV footage and decided that they were acting in self-defence and did not detain Gordon or his friend. Had the pair pressed charges, it would have resulted in them being temporarily detained while the other two men were sought and then charged.
"So I was like, 'Fuck that, I'm not going to jail for the night,'" said the MMA fighter.
"I've been to jail too many times. The cops said, 'We're just going to let it go then.' It's not worth the headache. You have to hire a lawyer and go through the whole process. Fuck that."
Gordon was in training for a fight at the time of the attack and managed to take to the Octagon just two months later, losing to Carlos Diego Ferreira.
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The injuries suffered by Gordon would impact his ability to be at his best in his contest.
He incurred gashes on his fingers that needed 21 stitches, causing him to miss a week and a half of training, before one of the cuts on his middle finger reopened and forced him to take another seven stitches, as well as having plastic surgery to rebuild his finger.
He went on to lose the fight by knockout, his first defeat in the UFC.
Featured Image Credit: Twitter / Jared GordonTopics: Celebrity, US News, UFC