UFC Belgrade: Rodriguez and Vologdin Undergo CT Scans
UFC confirmed that two fighters from the Belgrade Arena card, Daniel Rodriguez and Mark Vologdin, were taken to hospital for head and facial CT scans. Neither result has been released.
Two fighters from the UFC Belgrade card made the trip from the cage at Belgrade Arena to a local hospital on Saturday night. For one of them, it took just 30 seconds inside the cage to earn that trip. For the other, it took a full fifteen minutes. Both ended up in the same place, on a table for a CT scan of the head and face.
UFC confirmed that Daniel Rodriguez and Mark Vologdin were taken to hospital after their fights as a precaution, following the strikes they absorbed in the cage. The scan results have not been released.
Rodriguez Fell Before the Fight Really Started
He arrived in Belgrade having won his last three fights and left as a man who lost his first main event before the crowd had even settled in. Uros Medic knocked him out 30 seconds into the first round.
The streak that ended there was not a small one:
- a unanimous decision over Kevin Holland at UFC 318
- a stoppage win against Santiago Ponzinibio
- a decision over Alex Morono
What happened between those wins is the unusual part. After beating Holland in July 2025, Rodriguez spent eight months in a jail in Tijuana, Mexico, then walked into Belgrade Arena to headline a card for the first time with a training camp nobody would choose on purpose. His opponent was the hometown fighter. We already covered that jail stint and how it ended, and now a hospital visit has been added to the story.
Rodriguez is 39 years old.
Vologdin Was Not Knocked Out, but Went for the Same Scan
The second fighter who ended the night in a scanner never hit the canvas. Vologdin, a 26 year old Russian, fought the full three rounds against Borislav Nikolic and lost by unanimous decision. Fifteen minutes of exchanges can leave as much damage as a single clean knockout blow, which is why he underwent the same check as the man in the main event.
Nikolic was not even supposed to be part of the story. He stepped into the card as a late replacement for Josiah Musasu, who withdrew without a stated reason. The debutant, called up on short notice, took the fight to the scorecards and won it.
Why Does the UFC Send Fighters to the Hospital at All?
Because it is standard procedure, not an exception. After a knockout, and after three round fights in which a fighter absorbs a heavy volume of strikes, the promotion routinely arranges transport to hospital and orders a CT scan of the head and face. The scan is done out of caution and most often turns up nothing that changes anything.
That is also why the results are not released right away. As of publication, nothing has been announced about what the scans showed for either fighter.
A Record Night Has a Second Column Too
The Belgrade card broke the UFC’s modern record for first round stoppages. There were ten of them, two more than the previous high set at UFC 329 a month earlier. In total, twelve fights on the card ended in a stoppage, more than any other modern event held by the promotion.
The same number looks different read the other way. Of the 14 fights at the Arena, only two went to the judges’ scorecards: the bout between Aleksandar Rakic and Marcin Tybura, and the Nikolic versus Vologdin fight. The remaining twelve ended by knockout, technical knockout or submission. The night with the most stoppages in the promotion’s modern history was also the night that sent two fighters to hospital, one of whom was the very man who lasted all three rounds.
That is not a coincidence, it is arithmetic. When twelve of fourteen fights end in a stoppage, it means a lot of heavy strikes were absorbed in a short window, which keeps the cageside medical team busier than they would be at a card decided mostly on points.
What Comes Next
Vologdin now sits at 0-1-1 in the UFC after Belgrade, since his debut earlier this year ended in a draw. Rodriguez had his three fight win streak snapped in a bout that was supposed to confirm his comeback.
The number that matters here is not the 30 seconds, it is the 39 years. A fighter of that age, who returned to the cage after eight months behind bars and went down to the first serious punch he took, has good reason to wait for the results before announcing anything. The figure worth waiting for is not the date of his next fight, but what the scan actually showed.
