Luis ‘luis_faria’ Faria and his family

“The Bite Heard Round the World.” It happened in mid-1997 on the Las Vegas Strip and involved Mike Tyson taking a big old bite out of Evander Holyfield’s left ear. Tyson was immediately disqualified and, almost 20 years later, his blood-spewing actions still live on in infamy.

Enter Luis ‘luis_faria’ Faria, who was heavily into rugby for 13 years before a mountain of injuries finally caught up with him, just as they do other athletes whose bodies have taken a beating.

“With the injuries that I got through the years, it was better to quit while I could walk,” he said.

Despite a rash of ailments, Faria called rugby the best thing that ever happened to him.

“I made lifelong friends and learned the values of friendship, companionship, and loyalty,” the Portuguese player said “Rugby made me a better man in general.”

Faria began playing rugby at age nine and completely stopped three years ago.

“It was fun while it lasted and while my body could handle the physical aspect of the game,” said Faria. “I was in the Portuguese under-17 squad, but the injuries didn’t let me continue that high volume of training and physical requirements needed to continue in the national squads.”

Rugby is a somewhat violent sport in which you’ll find terms like “maul” and “ruck” thrown around with abandon. Its ball resembles an American football and the next Rugby World Cup, if you’re already planning your calendar, is in 2019 in Japan. Just like boxing, there’s a ton of physical contact, which means plenty of opportunities for life-altering catastrophes.

Faria got into the game courtesy of his uncle, who played in the Associacao Academica de Coimbra, or AAC for short, and the PocketFiver followed suit.

“He played in AAC while he was a teenager until the adult level, but due to injuries, he had to stop,” Faria said. “When I was a kid, I wanted to get a sport for myself and try different things, but once I tried rugby, I never looked back.”

If you want stories involving blood and gore, Faria has them. Take the time he had a portion of his finger ripped off after a member of the opposing team bit him. In a scene reminiscent of Tyson versus Holyfield, Faria said, “It was during a play when I had my hands on the ball. I felt a hard stab in my finger and when I looked at it, it had a bit of meat hanging.”

Gross. Gross. Gross.

Then there was the time one of Faria’s friends was tackled so hard that when he fell on the ground, his elbow popped out.

“While being his friend, we did what all friends do and started taking pictures with him and trying to pose for pictures,” Faria said. “The medical staff then came and fixed him up.”

Faria in the middle of a rugby pileup

You can see why he began exploring other careers like poker, which he discovered via friends in high school in 2008.

“I’ve always liked card games,” he said. “When my friends told me people could make money playing cards, I was hooked.” His rugby friends were into poker as well, which further pushed him into the game.

Nowadays, it seems unlikely anyone will be chomping on his finger again, unless he runs into a hungry Mike Tyson on the street. He’s a poker player who just hit $1 million in career online tournament winnings and is ranked #5 in Portugal. He has wins in the PokerStars $215 Weekly Six-Max, Big $75, and Hot $55 to his credit, just to name a few.

And to get his fill of exercise nowadays, Faria has turned to a popular form of training: Crossfit.

“When I’m not in Portugal because I’m playing online tournament series or other games, I do CrossFit three times a week, but back in Portugal I do CrossFit five or six times a week,” the million dollar man said. “Since we can’t play poker while in Portugal, a lot of Portuguese pros have to go abroad to do so. I definitely find that the mix between poker and CrossFit fills the void left from rugby.”

His destinations to hit up online poker when he’s interested include Poland or Hungary, which while both on the European continent require a considerable amount of travel. His ranking on PocketFives has suffered as a result of being Portuguese, as he was as high as #177 in the world, but now sits just inside the top 500.

“If I could play without any restrictions, I could most definitely be in the top 100 worldwide for sure,” Faria said.