Mikey Musumeci Fighting Off Illness to Compete at One Fight Night 15

“Let’s see how tough I am and if my body can handle this”

Mikey Musumeci is fighting tonight for ONE Championship.

Even if he shouldn’t be.

“I don’t have to be here, said Musumeci. “I want to be here.”

Musumeci is competing against Shinya Aoki in an openweight submission grappling bout at ONE Fight Night 15, which takes place at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok. Despite the time difference, the bout airs in prime time throughout the United States tonight on Prime Video.

Without question, this will be the toughest fight of Musumeci’s career. In addition to facing Aoki, there is an altogether different opponent testing Musumeci: his own health.

“This isn’t about being the best Mikey I can be,” said Musumeci. “It’s about the best I can be for 10 minutes in this fight.”

Courtesy ONE

Musumeci struggled yesterday to pass the ONE hydration test. He failed on his first two attempts before passing on his third and final chance. That is the result of an unidentified illness, one that has even made training a Herculean task for Musumeci.

Living in Thailand for the past month, a nightly ritual for Musumeci has been treating himself to an evening dessert. Watermelon is his favorite, which he orders from a street vendor. That is what happened on September 26–only 10 days ago–before going to sleep.

Musumeci woke up that night with intense diarrhea. As he would soon learn, that would prove to be the least pressing of his concerns.

“I woke up exhausted the next morning,” said Muscumeci, who is a healthy, fit, 27-year-old. “I felt dead during training. I had to run back to the toilet. Then I got this crazy fever. It was getting out of hand, so I went to the hospital. They did some tests and gave me some fluids, gave me some medicine and told me I could go home. I thought that was weird considering how sick I was, but they’re doctors and they know what they’re doing.”

After returning home, Musumeci became even more ill.

“My fever spiked to 106,” said Musumeci. “Now I’m shivering. I’m so cold and I’m burning. I went to the bathroom and took a burning hot shower. I start hallucinating. I thought I was going to die. I crawled downstairs, I called another taxi, and it took an hour to get there.

“When I got to the hospital, I was asked to fill out paperwork. I was in screaming pain. When I finally saw a doctor, he was shocked I was allowed to leave. He told me I had sepsis.”

Musumeci was hospitalized for four days. His stomach was in stabbing pain, and he existed in a nonstop state of agony.

“This was f------ hell,” said Musumeci. “F------ hell.”

There was no chance that Musumeci could fight at ONE Fight Night 15. His body, he decided, simply would not allow it.

“I start messaging the ONE people, I told them I couldn’t fight,” said Musumeci, who was temporarily removed from the ONE Fight Night 15 card. “I was so afraid of the doctors and the hospital. They kept asking me for more money [at the hospital]. One of the doctors told me they’d sent me home the last time because there wasn’t enough room in the hospital. So I could have died because space was tight? Someone else from the hospital told me, ‘If it was meant to be, it’s meant to be.’ So I didn’t trust the hospital.”

“The doctor told me I shouldn’t train for two weeks. I was lethargic. I couldn’t walk. And he also said no dairy or gluten. What the f---, right? My whole diet is pizza and pasta.”

Musumeci this past August (Credit: Mikey Musumeci)

Musumeci left the hospital, and slowly began to regain his strength. Considering the possibility of fighting, he decided to take a risk and reopen dialogue with officials from ONE. That led to Musumeci training on Monday and Tuesday of this week, which is when he made the decision to compete.

“I told myself, ‘If I can get through one hour of training, I’ll fight,’” said Musumeci. “That was Monday. I got through 30 minutes, and I had to rest. Then I did another 30 and I got through the training. Tuesday, I did one more hour of training. So I said, ‘I’m in. Let’s do it.’”

Musumeci is pushing himself. He is competing at ONE Fight Night 15–a potentially frightening proposition against Aoki.

“Let’s see how tough I am and if my body can handle this,” said Musumeci. “I’ve been training for 60 minutes a day.

“It’s also not my division. Shinya doesn’t even have to diet because it’s openweight. He can be as heavy as he wants. But I want to push myself. I want to feel that feeling of uncertainty and discomfort. That’s going to make me tougher and make me grow.”

Suddenly, this interesting bout is now the most compelling fight on the card. Aoki will likely attempt to put pressure on Musumeci early and try to come forward, which Musumeci has trained for over the past few days.

“I’m ready,” said Musumeci. “I believe in myself, and I want to show myself I can do this. I’m going to show how grateful I am for ONE Championship. I agreed to this match, so I’m going to do it.

“I want to push myself and test myself. That’s why I’m here.”

A source of frustration for Musumeci is that there are still many unknowns. He finds it infuriating that he still does not know the cause of illness.

“I was told it was sepsis or a bug bite or a tropical infection,” said Musumeci. “It was madness. The watermelon seems the most likely, but we don’t know. It was a very scary time.”

Throughout the ordeal, Musumeci somehow did not lose his endearing sense of humor.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m scared as f--- of watermelon,” said Musumeci. “Shinya is making videos eating watermelon. I’ll be honest, I’m much more scared of watermelon than I am of Shinya.”

A proud native of New Jersey, Musumeci’s fighting nickname is “Darth Rigatoni”. He holds a soft spot in his heart for pasta, and he absolutely loves pizza. Fortunately for him, pizza was not the cause of this incredibly painful ordeal.

“If it were pizza, that would have been the most heartbreaking,” said Musumeci. “For all I’ve given pizza in my life, that would have been too much.”