“I’ve been trying to stay super active,” said Shainis, who has already fought four times in 2022. “It’s funny, I just turned 32, but I lost a year in 2018 when I broke my neck. That put me back a year. I’ve seen guys get to the next level in that year and I told myself I wasn’t done. I come back, I have four fights, I’m scheduled for my fifth and it gets stopped by the pandemic, and that put me back another year and a half. So, as of right now, I’m coming off two-and-a-half years of a lost career from things I couldn’t control, but it hasn’t deterred me at all.”
Wait, a broken neck?
“I was injured going into the fight and I don’t know if my neck was broken or it broke during the fight,” he explains of his April 2018 bout with Daniel Matos. “So after the first round, I couldn’t move my left arm, and I ended up losing that fight 29-28 at 155, so that’s up a weight class. It was a short-notice replacement fight, so I just said f**k it. My original opponent backed out, and they got me some black belt from Florida, and I lost a pretty close decision. The first two rounds were competitive, the third round, I was done, but I didn’t quit. That’s actually my proudest fight.”
Again, not even a trace of woe is me or maybe my career is done. Just like former world boxing champion and fellow New Englander Vinny Pazienza, Shainis wasn’t considering another line of work.
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“Not even a question in my mind,” said Shainis, who returned eight days shy of his injury to knock out David McClendon with a flying knee in ten seconds. Three more wins followed before COVID hit the world and put his life on pause just when he believed he was closing in on a call from the UFC.
“The pandemic messed up my whole life,” he said. “I’m dead serious. I lost a boatload of money, I was scheduled to fight for the 145 title back home, and it put my life on hold. I just invested money in a gym that essentially I haven’t seen any money back from, I lost my bartending gig and I couldn’t train.”