Rafael Lovato Jr.’s mixed martial arts career could be in jeopardy due to a hereditary brain condition.
Prior to facing Gegard Mousasi at Bellator 223 this past June, Lovato was required to undergo a brain scan for the first time in his professional career. It was then that he was diagnosed with cavernoma, which is known as a “cluster of abnormal blood vessels, usually found in the brain and spinal cord.”In an interview on Joe Rogan’s JRE MMA podcast, Lovato recalls sensing something was amiss when it took a while for him to be summoned from the examination room.
“The radiologist, with really no candor or an easy or soft way of saying it, was like, ‘Dude, have you seen your brain before? There’s some stuff in here you need to see.’ He pulls me into the room and shows me on the screen, pointing out what looked like little balls,” Lovato said. “It looked like something was wrong – it didn’t look like a normal scan. But I don’t know – like shades of discoloration. …