Lerone Murphy is nicknamed ‘The Miracle’ for good reason. But do you know why he is called that? While long-time fans are well aware of the incident that gave him his nickname, newbies to the sport will be stunned by what he lived through to get it. 

At just 21, he survived a horrific drive-by shooting in broad daylight outside a barbershop in the Fallowfield suburb of South Manchester. While appearing in a recent interview with the legendary Demetrious Johnson, the undefeated star recalled the fateful day that could have been his last. 

Lerone Murphy made it to UFC thanks to his cousin

Speaking with Murphy, Johnson asked what led him to choose a life in kickboxing. Explaining how he began MMA training, Murphy revealed the harrowing details from the time he was shot in the face. It immediately caught Johnson’s attention, given how rare gun violence is in the UK.

“No, no, no, not at all,” Murphy told Johnson. “There are a lot of guns here. Obviously, they’re illegal.” Murphy then agreed to walk Johnson through the incident, describing the day from his POV. “It was like a movie. It’s crazy,” he said. “I was getting ready to go to Ibiza… It was my mum’s birthday that day as well.”

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As part of the preparations, Murphy and his cousin went to a barbershop. “I’m outside the barbershop. The barber [kept] saying five more minutes, five more minutes.” Moments later, everything changed. “A car ends up pulling up, and there are loads of us outside the shop. The car starts shooting. I get hit in the face. I fall to the floor,” Murphy recalled. 

According to reports, the then 21-year-old was struck once in the face, with the bullet piercing his cheek and damaging his jaw. A second bullet exited through the base of his neck. Despite the severity of his injuries, Lerone Murphy remained alive. 

“Then I wake up, and it’s just like beeping. If you play Call of Duty, it’s like when you get shot, it’s like I hear that ringing noise. And I’m thinking, ‘Oh s—t, am I alive?’” he continued. 

Murphy remembered being able to move, and as he turned, more bullets flew past him, smoke filling the air. He later described the entire ordeal as feeling like a real-life movie. “And then luckily, my cousin was driving down the road at that time. He saw me on the floor, picked me up, got in the car, and we drove to the hospital,” Murphy told Johnson during the interview. 

In previous interviews, Murphy has claimed he even spat bullets out of his mouth before collapsing. He lost several teeth, and his tongue swelled severely from the trauma. Murphy required a tracheotomy to breathe and spent a week in intensive care, followed by another week in the hospital. 

Doctors were reportedly shocked by his survival, having initially believed he would not make it. To this day, Murphy still has a fragment of a bullet lodged in his tongue. This, however, wasn’t his only near-death experience. 

The Grim Reaper couldn’t catch ‘The Miracle’ a second time

Murphy lived up to his nickname not once but twice. The UFC featherweight was hospitalized in May 2022 following a cycling accident in Manchester, where a careless driver knocked him off his bike at speed, leaving him with a “nasty head wound.”

Sharing an update from his hospital bed, Murphy revealed he waited nearly 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive while bleeding heavily from his head. “Ffs I can’t catch a break… Another near-death experience,” Murphy wrote, adding that he was “still breathing for a greater purpose.”

Today, Murphy is 17-0-1, 9-0-1 in the UFC, and continues to live up to his nickname. He is currently ranked no.4 in the promotion’s ranking and may someday become the champion. 

That being said, Lerone Murphy was clearly put on this blue planet for a reason. Until he accomplishes it, nothing can stray him off the path. What did you think of his two near-death experiences?