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The 30-year-old Neal was ordered to refrain from training for a month, staying in his apartment before slowly getting back into the gym. And if you know Neal, one of the most important things to the UFC welterweight contender is embracing the grind. That meant staying out of intense training sessions at Fortis MMA in Dallas, TX, which wasn’t exactly easy for the budding contender.
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In fact, it wasn’t certain that Neal was ever going to be able to compete in the Octagon again. Due to the trauma suffered to his heart, doctors and specialists were concerned about his ability to fight again, so they offered him a form of protection once he resumed training.
“They were trying to give me a shock vest. Pretty much what a shock vest does is that if your heart rate goes below a certain point, it will shock you and keep you alive,” Neal told UFC.com.
“They said to me, ‘You might need this, or you could die.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not taking that shock vest.’”