GFL middleweight Mariusz Ksiazkiewicz gets stabbed in the chest while taking out the trash

Mariusz Ksiazkiewicz was just taking out the trash. A normal activity on a normal Wednesday night after putting his two daughters to bed. The GFL middleweight walked into the dark alley behind his home in Winnipeg last week, tossed the trash in the bin, then turned around and got stabbed in the chest.

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“It was weird,” Ksiazkiewicz told Uncrowned. “It was like bumping into someone at the grocery store. Like when you’re reaching to grab something off the shelf and you turn around and you bump into someone. That was essentially what it was, except there was some pain behind it. It startled me a little bit.”

Ksiazkiewicz (10-2), who was drafted by GFL’s London team earlier this year, didn’t initially realize what had happened. All he knew was that a man in a hooded sweatshirt with a balaclava partially concealing his face had stepped into him with some kind of short blow to the chest. That jolt hurt more than it should have, Ksiazkiewicz thought in the moment, but then his training kicked in.

“I just threw out a couple punches,” he said. A short one-two. Ksiazkiewicz didn’t even really think about it. The next thing he knew his assailant was falling backward, his head smacking off the cold pavement.

“I went to take a step forward and my chest was burning,” Ksiazkiewicz said. “I reached up and touched my chest to see what was going on and my hands were completely soaked and dripping with blood. That’s when I realized that I got stabbed.”

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Just try to picture it. You’re a champion on the regional scene and you just caught a break in your MMA career. You’re expecting your first GFL fight this June. It’s the best opportunity you’ve had since a shot on Dana White’s Contender Series back in 2020, which resulted in your first professional loss after a decision didn’t go your way.

Now you’re getting a chance to move up in this sport — and what happens? You walk out the back door and get stabbed. Just out of nowhere. You don’t recognize the guy. You don’t have any idea why he’d want to stab you. You knew this neighborhood wasn’t great just like you knew crime had become a concern in Winnipeg, but this? To get stabbed on a Wednesday night? And while taking out the trash?

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“It’s just kind of crazy,” Ksiazkiewicz said. “It’s not something you really even think about happening.”

But it did happen. Then he was standing there with a hole in his chest and blood soaking his clothes. His attacker seemed to be down for the count, so Ksiazkiewicz stepped over him and went back inside. He locked the door behind him, called a friend to come stay with his kids, then got in the car and drove himself to the hospital.

“I looked and there was a pretty big hole,” Ksiazkiewicz said. “I don’t know, it looked like it was about an inch in my chest and it was on the left side where your heart is. So I knew it wasn’t good. I just tried to remain calm. I plugged the hole with a towel and made the drive to the hospital while putting pressure on the wound. The moment I walked in at the reception area there at the hospital, they’re like, ‘Hey what do you need? Why are you here?’ I’m like, ‘Listen, I got stabbed in the chest. I’m going to need help right away.’”

Telling medical professionals that you’ve been stabbed in the chest is, as it turns out, a good way to get their attention. Once doctors got to work on Ksiazkiewicz, their biggest concern was his heart. Initial imaging made it appear as if the blade might have nicked that precious organ. Further tests showed that the knife missed by millimeters.

It missed everything important, in fact. His heart. His lungs. It went straight through his pectoral muscle, between his ribs, and came within a hair’s breadth of killing him. But it didn’t. And the difference those millimeters made was the difference between ending the night in a body bag and being able to drive himself home a few hours later.

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The first thing Ksiazkiewicz thought when he learned that, in the doctor’s words, “none of the good stuff was hit,” was that this meant good news for his fight career.

“If it had clipped my heart, that would have probably meant open heart surgery and then my GFL career would be over, at least for this season,” Ksiazkiewicz said. “But I was really lucky. Not only lucky it didn’t really hit anything, but lucky to be alive.”

It’s a strange thing, to have a near-death experience that appears out of nowhere and then vanishes into your past almost as quickly. Ksiazkiewicz went from performing normal household chores to gushing blood from his chest to being back home in his own bed all within a matter of hours.

The police came, of course. But what could Ksiazkiewicz tell them? He didn’t get a good look at the guy. He probably wouldn’t recognize him if he saw him again. Presumably, he picked himself up off the pavement while Ksiazkiewicz was tending to his own wounds and now he was out there in Winnipeg somewhere, doing who knows what. He couldn’t think of any reason why someone would want to stab him. Maybe there really was no reason, or at least not one that would make sense to him. It’s a little jarring to go back to your normal routine after that.

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“Right now, I feel like I really notice little sounds and stuff,” Ksiazkiewicz said. “I wouldn’t say they set me off. But the other night one of my neighbors was shoveling snow late at night. Just the sound of the shovel scraping against the concrete, it gave me flashbacks to the knife going in. Little unexpected things like that. But mostly I feel very lucky and very grateful to still be around for my loved ones, my daughters and my girlfriend and my family.”

As far as he knows, Ksiazkiewicz said, his GFL fight is still on. He doesn’t have an opponent yet, but expects to be fully recovered and ready to fight by June. As for when he can return to the gym?

“I was just there this morning,” he said. And with a wry chuckle he added: “Against doctor’s orders.”