{"id":720526,"date":"2026-06-07T06:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T06:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720526\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T06:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T06:44:11","slug":"junior-tafa-transported-to-hospital-after-ufc-vegas-118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720526\/","title":{"rendered":"Junior Tafa Transported To Hospital After UFC Vegas 118"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Better to be safe than sorry &#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-results\/447540\/ufc-vegas-118-live-results-highlights-play-by-play-muhammad-vs-bonfim\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC Vegas 118<\/a> tonight (Sat., June 6, 2026) inside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-news\/414751\/ufc-loses-apex-naming-rights-in-stunning-five-year-deal-that-fight-fans-are-calling-the-future-of-mma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meta Apex<\/a> in Las Vegas, Nevada, promotion officials confirmed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmamania.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMAmania.com<\/a> that one fighter was transported to a local \u201cSin City\u201d hospital for precautionary reasons after sustaining damage in his respective bout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The lone fighter transported was Light Heavyweight Junior Tafa.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"_19lkh3w1\" href=\"https:\/\/platform.mmamania.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/110\/2026\/06\/gettyimages-2280244335.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,0,100,100\" data-pswp-height=\"5172\" data-pswp-width=\"7758\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JUNE 06: Junior Tafa of Australia stands in his corner prior to facing Iwo Baraniewski of Poland in a light heavyweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at Meta APEX on June 06, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC)\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"_8s7ip80\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gettyimages-2280244335.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>LAS VEGAS, NEVADA &#8211; JUNE 06: Junior Tafa of Australia stands in his corner prior to facing Iwo Baraniewski of Poland in a light heavyweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at Meta APEX on June 06, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Tafa (7-6) was transported to the hospital for a scan of his left leg following his technical knockout loss to Polish finisher Iwo Baraniewski. During the fight, Baraniewski blasted Tafa\u2019s left leg with a kick, and the Australian immediately collapsed to the canvas in visible pain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Baraniewski quickly pounced with follow-up shots, and the fight was halted shortly after (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-paramount-plus-news-hub-fight-cards-schedule\/448625\/watch-ufc-vegas-118-video-highlights-results-paramount-baraniewski-knockout-tafa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">watch highlights<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">UFC Vegas 118 was Tafa\u2019s third fight of the year, and during fight week, he said he was hoping to compete six times in 2026. Unfortunately, those plans may have come crashing down depending on the severity of his leg injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The 29-year-old is currently 3-6 inside UFC, with his three wins coming against Kevin Christian last month, Sean Sharaf and Parker Porter (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2023\/8\/26\/23846870\/watch-full-fight-video-highlights-ufc-singapore-results-espn-tafa-knockout-porter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">watch highlights<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">At this time, Tafa\u2019s scan results have not been publicly disclosed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-327-live-stream-miami-prochazka-ulberg-mma\/436345\/three-fighters-transported-to-hospital-following-violent-ufc-327-including-curtis-blaydes-and-josh-hokit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It is normal<\/a> for UFC to transport fighters to the hospital for precautionary reasons, especially after fighters are involved in damaging three-round battles, suffer nasty knockouts or sustain injuries that need additional evaluation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Stick with <a href=\"http:\/\/MMAMania.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMAmania.com<\/a> for any further health-related updates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">For complete UFC Vegas 118 results, coverage, and highlights click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/e\/447540\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Better to be safe than sorry &#8230; Following UFC Vegas 118 tonight (Sat., June 6, 2026) inside Meta&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,179146,6656],"class_list":["post-720526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}