Alonzo Menifield showed an immense amount of grit and toughness as he fought through a horrific injury to win his fight on Saturday night.The light heavyweight veteran edged a split decision over previously unbeaten Pole Iwo Baraniweski in the opening bout of the UFC 331 main card in Los Angeles.Menifield picked up a tight split decision win over Baraniweski despite suffering a compound fracture to his left thumbGettyBaraniweski got off to a good start, wobbling Menifield with multiple big right hands, but the American rebounded well in the second stanza as he met fire with fire.Somewhere amidst the furious exchanges, Menifield suffered a gruesome compound fracture to his left thumb, with bone protruding through the skin and blood pouring from the open wound.The doctor was called in to check the injury at the end of round two, and after much deliberation, Menifield was given the all-clear as he gutted it out in the final round to win on the cards.Two judges scored the fight 29-28 in Menifield’s favour, while the third judge had Baraniweski winning by the same margin.Alonzo Menifield’s post-fight speech“If this thumb, the whole wrist, all fingers would have broken, I would have kept going,” Menifield told Joe Rogan in the Octagon post-fight.“Because as I walk the streets of L.A., I see those homeless people and I got to tell you, that’s my mom. “I see my mom digging through the trash can.“As I was a kid, I have seen her in trash cans, and it broke my heart. “So I always wanted to be tough. So, where I come from, this is my backbone.”Social media was immediately flooded with praise for Menifield’s toughness as fans reacted to his nasty thumb injury.GRAPHIC WARNINGThe bone in Menifield’s thumb was left protruding through the skin midway through the fightGettyView Tweet: https://t.co/r8wvlhe4WNOne supporter wrote: “That is the most horrific injury ever.”Another remarked: “Damn that looks bad. That is a tough-minded dude!”A third posted: “Crazy how he held in there to get it done!”Meanwhile, somebody else added: “Bone sticking out of his thumb & he was hitting that kid different. Move him up an extra spot in rankings just for that s***.”Menifield entered the fight as the No.14-ranked light heavyweight contender, but is likely to receive a boost come Monday morning.While unranked, Baraniweski was heavily favoured to win and had knocked out both of his previous UFC opponents in the opening round.talkSPORT's UFC pound-for-pound rankingstalkSPORT.com has collectively voted on the best fighters to form a regularly updated UFC pound-for-pound (P4P) rankings system for the rest of 2026 and beyond.Our P4P list will be updated regularly based on performances in the Octagon — with wins, records, title wins and defences, calibre of opponents, methods of victory and much more all determining who makes it.UFC champions Islam Makhachev, Tom Aspinall and Sean Strickland feature – but big stars such as Alex Pereira and Arman Tsarukyan miss out.