Raulian Paiva loves fighting, and still had mixed feelings when he got a call to fight at UFC 251. Traveling across the globe to fight Zhalgas Zhumagulov in Abu Dhabi on July 11 was a weird thought during a global health crisis, but Paiva opted to see the glass half-full.
Paiva lives in Para, one of the five states with most deaths related to COVID-19 in Brazil — a number that currently nears 5,000. With gyms closed, Paiva had to figure out new ways of training during the lockdown, and his head coach Ronildo Nobre wasn’t an option after testing positive for the virus.