One of the fascinating things about MMA is that sometimes good buddies have to get in the cage and, well, brutalize the other dude’s face. For example, although apparently Clayton McKinney and Charley Lynch are good friends, McKinney ended up erasing part of Lynch’s nose to earn a spot in the TUF house. In other words, it’s not like bowling where the worst thing you could do to your pal, is knock his beer over while getting up to take your next shot (although that could theoretically lead to fisticuffs…)
Thus, this is why the issue of fighting friends and teammates continues to be such a polarizing one in MMA, particularly for promoters like Dana White, who don’t want awesome fights punted because training partners refuse to fight each other. Now although the UFC Boss Man has got into it with other teams over this issue, White continues to get really annoyed with top welterweights Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch, who won’t fight due to their American Kickboxing Academy status / friendship. You may recall that White didn’t really care for Fitch’s recent remarks about the two fighting “behind closed doors.”
Anyways, it sounds like White is reaching his boiling point on this (thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote).
“It’s over man,” White said. “This whole ‘we won’t fight each other’ thing is over. How long can they go on when they have two of the top guys in the division and they won’t fight each other?”
Wow. This could get messy.