College football player needs surgery ‘after bar brawl with trained MMA fighter’

Reports say player had to undergo a four-hour operation to save his eye

A clip of the incident shows one man, who is reported to be trained in wrestling and mixed martial arts, throwing punches (news.com.au)

An American football player has ended up in hospital after a bar brawl with a trained wrestler and mixed martial arts fighter, according to reports.

Spencer Jones, a wide receiver for the University of Oklahoma, had to undergo a four-hour operation on 16 February to save his eye after a fight at a bar near the university, The New York Post reported.

A clip of the incident shows one man, who is said to be trained in wrestling and mixed martial arts according to his brother, throwing punches as the fight ensues. It’s not clear how the brawl began.

The footage shows Mr Jones sustaining a number of punches and being placed in a chokehold by the other man.

According to The Oklahoma Daily, the football player ended up in hospital following the fight and had to undergo surgery to save his eye.

Lawyer Woodrow Glass reportedly told the newspaper that a surgeon said the player should feel “extraordinarily lucky at this point, that he’s lucky he didn’t lose the eye altogether.”

"And so he was able to do some things surgically to rebuild that orbital socket and thinks everything is eventually going to come back to normal, but it’s going to take a while for him to fully recover,” the lawyer was quoted as saying

According Mr Glass, Mr Jones was “trying to de-escalate that situation.”

He added: “Unfortunately, it wasn’t de-escalated despite his best efforts, and he became the victim of this vicious assault you’ve seen”.

The Norman Police Department confirmed to The Oklahoma Daily it was what had happened. The Independent has reached out to the department for comment.

Mr Jones was named to the All-Big 12 Academic First Team in 2020.