UFC fighter Cameron Smotherman spoke out following a scary moment at the pre-fight weigh-in for UFC 324 where he collapsed live on stage.
“I obviously have got a lot of messages and I appreciate all of the genuine concern about me,” Smotherman, 28, told fans via Instagram on Friday, January 23. “I am completely OK. I’m good. I’m not entirely sure what happened.”
Smotherman had just stepped off the scale during a live-streamed event on Friday morning when he collapsed and landed face-first on the stage. UFC announcers Laura Sanko and Daniel Cormier were audibly stunned as they expressed concern for the fighter’s wellbeing.
“Oh no, oh no. That’s not good,” Cormier admitted to viewers, with a colleague interjecting: “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that.”
While UFC’s live stream coverage cut away from the stage, MMA Junkie published alarming footage shot inside the Nevada venue as coaches and trainers rushed to check on Smotherman. Multiple officials were heard calling out for a doctor as others helped Smotherman back to a seated position.
A doctor checked Smotherman’s vitals on stage and encouraged him to drink fluids before the fighter was assisted to his feet. When Smotherman seemed groggy and visibly wobbled on stage again, two officials physically lifted him up and carried him backstage.
Smotherman seemed to be in much better spirits a few hours later. In his Instagram video, he tried to downplay theories that his collapse may have been triggered by extreme weight cutting leading up to Saturday’s bantamweight fight.
“People online say it was ‘crazy weight cuts’ [for the fight], stuff like that,” he acknowledged. “I genuinely didn’t cut very much weight for this fight. I came in pretty low but even [through] the course of this week, I haven’t cut much weight.”
The MMA fighter confessed, “I’m not entirely sure what happened and I have some more tests and stuff to take in the coming weeks to get to the bottom of it. For all the people saying I must have done a crazy [weight] cut or something, I cut very, very little weight.”
Smotherman predicted that he would “hopefully be back soon” because he was feeling “completely OK.” He then apologized to his scheduled opponent, Ricky Turcios, for the cancellation of their fight at UFC 324.
Fellow MMA fighter Kody Steele replied to Smotherman’s health update with some encouragement, writing, “I’m glad you’re okay brother.”
UFC veteran Matt Schnell praised Smotherman as a “champ” while mixed martial artist Alex Perez shared a “prayer hands emoji” in the comments.
“Hoping you heal good, cant wait to see you back out there,” a fan wrote to Smotherman, with another chiming in, “I thought you wouldn’t get up, bro, but you showed your character.”
UFC has yet to clarify whether the Smotherman-Turcios match will be rescheduled for a later date.
The Smotherman-Turcios matchup was set to take place on the undercard of an event headlined by Justin Gaethje against Paddy Pimblett in an interim UFC Lightweight Champion contest. Paramount+ aired live coverage of UFC 234 from the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, on Saturday.
Smotherman is known professionally as “The Baby-Faced Killa” and has been considered a rising star in the world of MMA. He previously competed as part of Dana White’s Contender Series in a bantamweight bout in August 2023 against Charalampos Grigoriou, where he lost by TKO in under one minute.
The fighter went on to win his UFC Fight Night debut against Jake Hadley by a unanimous decision in October 2024. Smotherman was going into the now-cancelled fight with Turcios with a professional record of 12 wins, 6 losses and 0 draws.
