When 'Chopper' Chi Lewis-Parry's heavyweight hand hit the head of UFC light-heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier full-force in a “high energy” sparring session on Monday, it was inevitable that one side of the exchange was going to suffer.
As it turned out, it was Lewis-Parry's hand which lost the exchange. His left hook detonated on Cormier's head in almost literal fashion. The GLORY heavyweight said the shock of the impact travelled up his arm and that he knew immediately something was wrong.
“We were in a sparring session and the energy level was high. 'DC' is really motivated right now after watching Jones' last fight. So we were getting into it in the stand up, and next thing I've thrown my left hook and it's landed on his head and I just felt this shooting pain up my arm, from my hand up to my arm, and I just knew something had happened,” he says.
“I got my glove off and my hand was swelling up, so I called it a day, went and got a scan and it's turned out to be a fracture. I am gutted that I can't fight at GLORY 30 next week now, it's so unlucky. But I will be back as soon as I can and I am still chasing that title shot against Rico Verhoeven.”
From the injured party's point of view there are not many silver linings to be taken from an incident like this, but 'Chopper Chi' considers Cormier a good friend and takes consolation from knowing that Cormier can take a shot.
“I can tell you this: there are not many people who can take a clean left hook from me and stay on their feet but DC did, I am well impressed with him. We've had some really hard spars. he is really, really tough - and unfortunately for me, he's got a really hard head.”
Lewis-Parry's place against Guto Inocente on next week's GLORY 30 LOS ANGELES Superfight Series card, which airs live on UFC Fight Pass, will be taken by veteran Dutch fighter Brian Douwes, a regular sparring partner of heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven.
