UFCer loses title fight, contracts staph infection, blames Boston's TD Garden

Volkan OezdemirGregory Payan/Associated Press

Boston sports venues have long held reputations for hostility toward visitors. But this is on another level.

UFC light heavyweight Volkan Oezdemir, who lost to champ Daniel Cormier January 20 at Boston's TD Garden, recently alleged the arena's wrestling mats gave him multiple staph infections.

"I train [at TD Garden] before the fights, and I guess the mats are dirty," the Swiss fighter recently said on The MMA Hour broadcast, per Dave Doyle of MMA Fighting. "I don’t know how many times they clean it, so, yeah, I got a staph infection from the fights in three different parts of my body, and that’s not fun, yeah."

Oezdemir, who also suffered a broken orbital bone in the second-round knockout at UFC 220, said he contracted the nasty and dangerous infection in two locations on his stomach and one on his arm. He had to be hospitalized in order to address the infections.

TD Garden is also home to the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins. Legends have it that at TD Garden and the previous Boston Garden, opponents routinely endured a lack of hot water, conspicuously sweltering locker rooms and, in the case of basketball, several "dead spots" on the famous parquet floor that impeded unsuspecting Celtics opponents.

That, of course, is all in addition to Boston's notoriously raucous fanbase.

Obviously, this case is different. Oezdemir's allegation is merely that—an allegation—and even if true, there's no reason to suspect it was intentional. Still, for those inclined to believe in the mystique of the hostile Boston sports venue, this allegation might take the cake.