5 MMA fighters who won fights despite grave injuries 

#2 Forrest Griffin

Forrest Griffin had to be begged by Dana White to retire

On "The Forrest Griffin Story" on UFC Fight Pass, the Hall of Famer's mother, Kathryn, gave the most apt description of him - "a little crazy with a lot of heart".

While most of the public would see this when he and Stephen Bonnar threw down under the bright lights in a historic fight that reanimated the UFC, a couple of years before that, far away from the spotlight and a troupe of cameras, Griffin showed that he had genuine and endless grit in an unheralded performance against Edson Paredao.

In December 2003 in Natal, Brazil, under the HEAT FC banner, the two faced off in a fight where Griffin broke his left arm blocking a body kick from Paredao. He even escaped an armbar from the aggressive Brazilian and before the round ended, knocked him out with his right hand. In the video, you can clearly see Griffin cradling his left arm after the fight.

There is a lump on his forearm to this day because of the fracture. After the fight, it dawned on Griffin that he might be too tough for his own good and he actually quit MMA and went back to being a police officer.

It took a lot of cajoling from Dana White and the producers of TUF 1 to bring him out of retirement and it doesn't need telling that MMA fans will be forever indebted to Griffin for it.