Rebney: Bellator champ Eduardo Dantas was blacking out, fainting while grappling

Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney said there’s no definitive timetable for bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas‘ return, and there’s a good reason for it.

The 25-year-old Brazilian was slated to headline this past Friday’s Bellator 118 event before a head injury suffered during a recent training session put him on the shelf.

After the event, which saw Joe Warren defeat replacement Rafael Silva to win an interim title, Rebney said Dantas’ condition is serious.

“He was having some blackouts, having some fainting episodes even in grappling, which is scary,” he said. “So, God willing and knock on wood, he’ll get past that and we can do some retests to make sure he’s OK.

” … He’s a great kid. First and foremost, I hope he’s going to be OK. And second, I’d love to see him back in the cage because he’s one of the most exciting bantamweights in the cage.”

Dantas (16-3 MMA, 6-0 BMMA), who’s ranked No. 6 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA bantamweight rankings (and one of the highest-ranked non-UFC fighters in any weight class), most recently fought in March at Bellator 111, where he earned a slick submission victory over Anthony Leone (watch the video below). It marked his second Bellator title defense.


Although Dantas is expected to fight Warren in a title-unification bout upon his return, Rebney said he simply can’t estimate when that’ll be.

“We brought him out to the U.S. from Brazil, and we did an extensive amount of testing,” Rebney said. “We didn’t get the results we wanted on the tests, obviously. He’s back in Brazil right now and has been instructed not to do any training for an extended period of time to see if the symptoms that gave rise to our initial testing will go away, and then we’re going to retest him.

“Right now, he’s not doing anything, so we’re going to see.”

http://mmajunkie.com/2014/05/rebney-bellator-champ-eduardo-dantas-was-blacking-out-fainting-while-grappling

I wonder what the problem was exactly.

This sounds like the TJ Grant situation.