UPDATED 8:50 p.m.: Steve Watts is out of surgery and, according to friend Bryan Raskin, time will reveal how successful the operation has been.

UPDATED 10:30 a.m.: According to a friend of Steve Watts, Bryan Raskin, “We don’t really know much. He’s in surgery. They don’t know the extent of the damage. Maybe tonight we’ll know a little more information… We ask the community to rally around him….He’s got a long road ahead of him.”

Screengrab from the So You Wanna Fight webpage

Original post: As first reported in the Lumberjack here, a local mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, Steve Watts was seriously injured last night during a bout at the Cher-ae Heights Casino. According to The Lumberjack’s reporting, Watts who graduated from HSU in 1999, appeared to be unable to move following a take down attempt and was rushed to the Mad River Hospital. From there he was taken to Redding’s Mercy Hospital.

Watts, whose Facebook page says he is a lecturer at the College of the Redwoods in Environmental Ethics, is also a music promoter and guitar player.

Watts was participating in the So You Wanna Fight series at Cher-ae Heights Casino which is promoted in the video below. The fights are hailed in the text as “Lots of fun. Lots of Action and lots of Knock-outs.”