After near-death experience, Nico Robledo Jr. will work Anderson Silva's corner against Jake Paul
Anderson Silva will walk to the ring on Saturday at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, to fight YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul in a bout that has curiously turned into a rallying point for MMA fans tired of Paul finishing their heroes.
Silva, one of the greatest fighters in UFC history, wasn’t willing to give up his career when he parted ways with the UFC a few days after a loss to Uriah Hall on Oct. 31, 2020. It was his third loss in a row, his fifth in his last six bouts and it had been more than 23 years since his MMA debut.
He turned to boxing when there wasn’t any more MMA opportunities and added a coach, Nico Robledo Jr., to help him prepare for a bout with former boxing champion Julio Cesar Chavez Sr.
Robledo served as an assistant to Silva’s long-time coach, Luiz Dorea, and was in Silva’s corner for boxing victories over Chavez Jr. and Tito Ortiz.
“I have two amazing coaches,” Silva said. "Coach Dorea stayed with me for many, many years, my entire career. And Coach Nico started working with me to help me, and he brought my work to a different level."
But for a while, Silva worried he wouldn’t have Robledo Jr. in his corner for the Paul fight. On Dec. 5, 2021, Robledo was hospitalized with COVID-19. In early January 2022, he lapsed into a coma and was kept alive with a respirator.
On Jan. 26, 2022, with his condition not improving, doctors wanted to pull the plug and remove him from life support.
“COVID changed life for everybody,” Silva said.
A horrible anniversary
When Nico Robledo III heard the words from the doctor about his father’s condition, the significance of the date was lost on him at the time.
It was Jan. 26, and Robledo III, a promising amateur boxer who was coached by his father, simply couldn’t bear losing his dad. In a sad, bizarre coincidence, Sabrina Torres, the mother of the six Robledo Jr. children had died as a result of COVID-19 on Jan. 26, 2021.
On Jan. 26, 2022, doctors, fearing no hope, wanted to remove Robledo Jr. from life support. Several of Robledo III’s siblings put the two dates together. Robledo III did not. A promising amateur boxer who was coached by his father, he had only one focus: Somehow, someway, he desperately hoped to find a way to get his father healthy and for them to continue their boxing dream together.
“I wouldn’t say that I was in denial, but I wasn’t thinking of the date and that my mom had passed on that date,” Robledo III said. “I had no time to dwell on the date. My brothers and sisters, and everybody around the family, they all took it very hard. But I was just so focused on my dad and getting him better.
“When my mom passed, my dad told me, ‘Son, you need to be that strong branch for all of your brothers and sisters, no matter what. You’re going to need to be the one to give them hope.’ My dad had told me that when my mother was going through her situation. Now, a year later having my father go through the same thing, I knew what I had to do. I had no time to dwell on the anniversary. My goal was just to get my Dad good.”
Two eerie coincidences, and a miracle
Robledo III had a big amateur tournament coming up in the spring that he was shooting for. But without his father around, it was different. He worked out with Silva and the team at Blackhouse in Redondo Beach, California, but he was so close with his father and things weren’t the same.
The doctor agreed to leave the life support on for Robledo Jr., but there wasn’t a lot of optimism. Even before he lapsed into the coma, in December 2021, doctors feared the worst. Robledo Jr. had what has to be the worst conversation any patient could have with his doctor.
“After a week-and-a-half [after being admitted to the hospital on Dec. 5, 2021], all I remember is the doctor telling me I wasn’t going to make it due to the fact my organs were shutting down,” Robledo Jr. said. “He just said, ‘You’re going to die. There’s nothing I can do. Your whole body is shutting down.’ I said ‘Thank you,’ and I remember the doctor saying to me, ‘Are you OK with that?’ He said, ‘Most people want a second opinion or see if they can be moved to another hospital. You seem OK with it.’
“I said, ‘I’m not OK with it, but there is nothing I can do.’ I said, ‘If God wants me, I’m ready to go.’ And then I went into the coma, but I don’t really remember that.”
In a cruel irony, he was hospitalized on Dec. 5, 2021, a year-to-the-day after his former wife and mother of his children was hospitalized. She died on Jan. 26, 2021, exactly a year before the doctors wanted to remove him from life support.
On Jan. 26, 2022, several of the six Robledo children talked to the doctor about leaving their father on life support.
But then, something akin to a miracle occurred.
“They said to the doctor, ‘We don’t want to lose our father the same day we lost our mother,’” Robledo Jr. said. “And the doctor agreed. And a little later, somehow, by the grace of God, I woke up.”
A dream and an awakening
Robledo Jr. said he remembers almost nothing about his coma. He said he recalled things that had occurred during his life, and had this sense that he was floating in the fog.
“I realized then it wasn’t fog, it was the clouds,” he said. “I felt like I was floating in the clouds. And then I remember seeing my son, Nico, on a plane. For some reason, he was in the military and was on a jet. He was communicating with me and it was like I could read his mind.”
At that point, Robledo awakened and was out of the coma. It was March 15, 2022, and he had been comatose for more than two months. His birthday was March 21, 2022, and the family celebrated it in the hospital, though Robledo Jr. doesn’t remember.
He said it was two or three weeks until he was fully aware of his surroundings.
He began to recover from the symptoms of COVID that had nearly killed him, but he faced another problem: He couldn’t walk. He’d been in a hospital bed since early December. It was now April 2022.
He was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital so he could learn to walk again. The staff told him he could be there as long as two months.
He wasn’t having it. It turned out to be two weeks.
“My will and my desire to see and be with my family, I left the hospital in two weeks,” he said. “I’d started walking and I was discharged April 23.”
But if you think Robledo Jr. went home, sat in the easy chair and slowly regained his strength, you don’t know the will of this extraordinary man. On May 3, he was in Kansas City with son, who won a silver medal at featherweight.
Robledo Jr. lost his composure talking about it.
“You think of what we had been through and for me, nearly dying, being in a coma, not being able to walk, being in so much pain, and then to be there to see my son in a national tournament do that, I mean, it’s overwhelming in a way,” he said. “I was a very proud father and I also was so grateful and thankful to God that I was able to experience this.”
Back with ‘The Spider’
Silva noticed Robledo Jr. training other fighters at Blackhouse and asked about him. Silva was new to boxing and liked how Robledo worked with fighters.
Introductions were made and Robledo joined the team. He worked the corner for the Chavez and Ortiz fights, and, even though it seemed unlikely, will be in Glendale on Saturday.
Silva said, “I can feel the progress I made,” and believes he’s going to win.
And while Robledo knows he’s dealing with a 47-year-old boxer, he said he believes Silva has a chance to win and complete this fairytale the right way.
“Anderson has evolved a lot,” Robledo Jr. said. “He’s not the same fighter he was for the Julio Cesar Chavez fight, and Tito Ortiz. He’s still evolving. He’s 47, but I don’t care. He’s evolving and developing. I tell him, ‘Anderson, you’re 47 but you train and you carry yourself like you’re 27.'
“The sky is the limit for Anderson. He works so hard. He always stays in shape. He’s always in the gym. He loves to learn and he’s so dedicated, he’s always giving you 100 percent.”
Robledo Jr. won’t get much attention. It will be Silva and Dorea in the spotlight as they attempt to derail Paul’s hype train.
But Robledo is so grateful for the opportunity and a second chance at life.
“This story could have had a totally different ending,” he said. “Being with someone like Anderson makes you realize that life is worth living. He loves what he does and he gives everything he has and just wants to be the best he can and better than he was yesterday. If I’m a small part of that, that’s a great blessing for me.”
