The Fake Heart Attack Isn’t the Weirdest Part of This MMA Fight

He just stood up and tapped out.

You never know what you’ll see at your local MMA promotion. Maybe a fighter will suddenly puke right in the middle of the cage, or the ring announcer will botch his declaration of the winner not once but twice. But nothing can compare to what happened in this fight in Indiana this weekend. 

The main event of Colosseum Combat XLV was a bout between Jonathan “Big John” Ivey, a 42-year-old with a 32–57 career record fighting for only the fourth time in three years, and 41-year-old Travis Fulton, who sports a 254–54 record and fought in the early days of UFC. 

Near the end of the first round, Ivey took a kick to the torso and appeared to fake a heart attack, clutching his chest as he bent over. The deke caught Fulton off guard and allowed Ivey to get back on the offensive. Ivey knocked Fulton to the ground and started pummeling him. 

But then suddenly Ivey stopped. He stood up and took a few steps toward the center of the ring, where he tapped out. The look on the referee’s face changed from total confusion to utter contempt after he realized what had happened.

Fulton was just as confused as anybody but did suggest that maybe Ivey tapped out because he respects Fulton too much to beat him. 

“Apparently he looked up to me for years, he’s got a tattoo of me on his leg,” Fulton said in an in-ring interview. “I don’t know, sometimes that happens. You get it in your head that you can’t beat somebody you look up to, and maybe that’s what happened.”