‘Russian Gym Spies’ Just Red Scare

It turns out the whole gym spy thing was one big Red Scare, and Curtis was quick to apologize for being wrong.

Calm down, everybody. There’s no big Russian conspiracy to spy on American fighters and use that knowledge to undermine and destroy U.S. hegemony in combat sports.

That’s according to Chris Curtis, who threw out some serious accusations at his upcoming January 11th UFC Fight Night opponent Roman Kopylov. Curtis claimed Kopylov had planted two Russian spies at Xtreme Couture, and photos of the men training at Xtreme Couture and then with Kopylov were offered as proof.

But in a new video from Curtis, “Action Man” admits the whole thing was just a big coincidence, the kind of thing that happens when you’re in the fight capitol of the world and everyone is training with everyone.

“We have Johnny Walker at [Xtreme] and his opponent [Bogdan Guskov] is a guy we’ve trained with before,” Curtis explained. “But because they’re fighting, Walker’s opponent is going to Syndicate. When you have a big gym in Vegas, [teammates] fight each other. Cool. Whatever. It’s normal. It happens. Sucks when it happens.”

“So [Guskov’s] corners are the Russians that were at the gym … He said, ‘You guys can train at Xtreme. It’s good, there’s bodies for you at middleweight.’ So they’re at Xtreme, and then [Guskov] got in town … right around the time that Kopylov did. So … the two Russians vanished. But they vanished because [Guskov’s] back in town, and they’re his corner. So they’re like, ‘Okay, we’re going [to Syndicate].’ So that was unrelated to the Kopylov thing.”

Accusing dudes of being spies when they aren’t spies isn’t cool, because that kind of reputation will severely limit your ability to find a place to train. So Kopylov actually met with Curtis to try and clear up the whole mess.

“He’s like, ‘Everybody thinks I’m the bad guy!’” Curtis said. “I’m like, ‘F—k, my bad, Roman. Like, that was on me.’ I will admit guys, I was wrong. So let’s not hate Giant Chase Hooper. Because he’s not actually Giant Evil Chase Hooper.. He’s just Giant Chase Hooper. And to the other Russians, I apologize. Once again, that was on me. A lot of things fell into place weirdly, it did lead to this. But I was wrong.”

“He’s not actually evil,” Curtis concluded. “He’s a pretty cool dude, actually. So that’s the end of the Russia – Xtreme Couture saga.”

Curtis and Kopylov will fight at UFC Fight Night: Dern vs. Ribas 2, set to go down January 11th from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. Curtis comes into the bout 2-2-1 over his last five, while Kopylov is 4-1 over the same stretch.