'Bazooka arms' MMA fighter Kirill Tereshin to undergo surgery to remove potentially deadly bicep enhancements

Kirill Tereshin, an MMA fighter whose artificially enhanced biceps have earned him the nickname 'Popeye', has begun receiving treatment to remove his fake muscles amid doctors' warnings that they could kill him.

Tereshin, also known as 'Bazooka Arms', became something of a viral sensation this year after footage of the 23-year-old's outrageously swollen arms traversed the internet, but the former army recruit's 15 minutes of fame look to be coming to an end after he has heeded medical advice to remove the vaseline jelly-like substance from his upper arms or else risk amputation, or even death.

Surgeon Dmitry Melnikov revealed that Tereshin had injected up to three liters of the substance - and not synthol as previously claimed - to achieve the illusion of giant biceps but was urged by botched plastic surgery campaigner Alana Mamaeva to seek treatment.

Mamaeva raised funds for the procedure and was present for the first stages of it.

"I am ready, I am even not afraid," Tereshin told Mamaeva, per The Mirror, but outlined that he did not have the necessary funds required but Mamaeva pleaded with online donators that "we are going to try and help this young man."

Dr. Melnikov outlined that the surgery is a difficult one but that significant inroads had been made in their initial treatment.

"For now I have removed the damaged tissues from one arm only," he said. "Petroleum jelly saturates the muscles, under skin tissues and the skin itself. All that has to be removed, but we need to keep the vein, nerves and other functions of the limb.

"Petroleum jelly is not designed for injection, only external application. Kirill injected about three liters into each arm. It saturated the muscle tissues, blocked blood flow.

"As a result the tissue dies and gets replaced with a scar which is as tough as a tree, you can even knock on it and hear the usual sound. We have removed all this.

"He had high fever, strong pain, and weakness."

Dr. Melnikov also found that the damage was isolated to his arms and luckily hadn't spread to other areas of his body and said that Tereshin wasn't aware of the harm he was doing to himself. He faces several more surgeries before he can be given a clean bill of health.

Tereshin's online notoriety grew once images of his arms were spread online, leading to a spate of bizarre appearances in which he was easily defeated in an MMA match as well as being floored by Russian slapping champion Vasiliy 'The Dumpling' Kamotskiy.