'Babalu' Sobral Says He’s Dealing with CTE in Retirement: 'I Can’t Walk a Straight Line'

Before retiring in June 2013, Renato Sobral had a lengthy professional mixed martial arts career that spanned 48 fights for organizations such as the UFC, Strikeforce and Bellator.

Now, he’s feeling the long-term effects from so many battles in the cage and ring over a tenure that began with vale tudo bouts in the late 1990s. In an interview with Brazilian outlet PVT, Sobral revealed that he is struggling with loss of balance and sight, symptoms he attributes to chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

”Today I can’t walk a straight line, I lost sight of my left eye, which is a big price. I have no balance today, my balance is almost zero,” Sobral said (translation via MMAFighting.com). “When I’m fighting, when I’m in a jiu-jitsu tournament or in training, it feels that my balance is normal again, but it’s complicated on a daily basis. But the guys that start fighting have to know that the price to pay will come one day. For everyone. People only talk about the good things today, what they have accomplished, what happened, but what about what you’ve lost? What happened to you?

”If someone asked me if I would let my son fight vale tudo, I would say no, I wouldn’t. My daughter? No. I would hope she wouldn’t. I’d rather see her study. My daughter already is on the water polo ‘A’ team of her high school, she competes, but being a professional athlete? Any sport demands a lot from your body and you will have to pay the price in the future.”

The 43-year-old “Babalu” has squared off against a number of the sport’s most notable names including Dan Henderson, Fedor Emelianenko, Kevin Randleman, Chuck Liddell, Mauricio Rua, Jeremy Horn, Chael Sonnen, Gegard Mousasi and Robbie Lawler, to name a few. When he was younger and trying to provide for his family, Sobral didn’t spent much time pondering the potential consequences of a fighting career.

“You start doing things you are not prepared to do, but you have to go,” Sobral said. “You have to fight in pain, fight while injured. You get knocked out in the gym, and you’re still fighting the week after. You have to fight. You can’t say, ‘I won’t fight’. It’s one blow after the other. And I’m [paying the price] now, right? I don’t know if I’ll be able to see my grandkids, enjoy my grandkids in a normal way, because I’m starting to slowly feel the effects.

“I already have [chronic] traumatic encephalopathy, actually. People barely talk about it,” he continued. “You can do a research, [professional fighters] have peaks of depression, we have seizures, you don’t listen that well. I don’t have speaking issues yet, but I lost the eye sight of my left eye, I have osteoarthritis on my entire body. My knee. I have 13 surgeries through my entire body. So, there’s a price. It’s not in there for free. I don’t even think it’s about glory, because it’s not for enough time.”