(Seen here: Bob Sapp‘s most legit fight in the past five years.)
If you’ve followed this thing we call MMA for even a couple years now, then you’ve undoubtedly heard of the travesty to the sport that is Bob Sapp. If he were a band, the boys over at MetalSucks would refer to him as “A Shitstain on the Ass of the Universe,” which is perhaps the most appropriate label to place on someone who seems to be doing his damnedest to soil the metaphorical trousers of the sport we hold dear.
Possibly sent on a mission of mercy by the fellas over at Mitch and Murray, Ariel Helwani decided to bring Sapp onto his show, “The MMA Hour,” to dispel or confirm the general consensus that he has thrown most, if not all of his fights over the past four or five years. What started off as at least a coherent defense on Sapp’s part quickly spiraled into a smorgasbord of nonsensical rants and accusations punctuated by creepy, baritone laughter, before concluding with several futile attempts by “The Beast” to justify his pathetic existence through Youtube hits, or something like that. In other words, it was typical Bob Sapp.
Just take this gem, for instance, which actually came before Sapp decided to go full retard:
I will receive no damage to my body that will be long lasting for a small insignificant amount of cash. I think we’ve seen that now with examples with the NFL and the fact that some of these guys are coming back and saying, “Hey we want some money, we have brain damage.” I’m getting paid well underneath what a professional boxer would, or Manny Pacquiao. So I will, in no means ever, will I sustain long-lasting damage for a small paycheck. Never will that happen, never will “The Beast” ever have that happen.
(The interview starts around the 2:13:00 mark.)
Some notable quotes from Sapp include:
On his appearance fee: On average, it’s roughly around that $30,000 to $40,000 a fight range. And that can be a bit misleading because in between time, I am doing the television shows and commercials and things of this nature and so when you say on average, that’s what it is. Obviously it calculates to be significant more between three to five times that, yes that is correct. However, when you talk about just the fights, with me, you have to worry about the schedule commercials and stuff like that, but just the fights right now, you are looking at basically $30,000 to $40,000.
On whether or not he is throwing fights: Am I throwing these fights? No. Will I go into that ring and receive large amounts of damage for small paychecks? No. When it came to K-1, at the time, when everyone at K-1 was doing well they get paid significantly enough to have you go into that ring, and hey, any kind of injury you get, they are going to pay. Let me give you an example: Mirko Cro Cop, he cracked my eye socket. Mirko Cro Cop, he received his paycheck, I received my paycheck and they also paid for my entire hospital bill. These small organizations that you see that look so wonderful, they pay none of your bills if you get hurt, period. If you want to get hurt for a small amount of money in a fight, we call that the military. If you would like to get hurt in an arena where it is supposed to be sanctioned and it is supposed to be safe and their supposed to pay for at least your medical bills if you get hurt, then we call that entertainment. If you want to see two strangers fight for free, you can do that. We will give you seven dollars and go in a night club and you can see two drunks getting it on in the corner, fighting. You have no idea who they are and you can do that for free. My fans and my family they will stand by me and behind me, win or lose. So, Bob Sapp, I guess it is easy to love a winner.
On how he justifies his increasingly terrible performances: One thing that I say, is let’s take a look and rewind back. You saw some historical and difficult fights that I fought with Ernesto Hoost and with Antonio Noguiera, this is correct. If you were to take a look at what recently has happened with K-1 and the fact that you had wonderful, great, strong fighters such as Ray Sefo fight for K-1 and then K-1 leaves and they were left without collecting a paycheck. So, when “The Beast” enters the ring, is he in there to collect a paycheck? The answer is hell yes! You’re asking, “Bob you are receiving less damage, there is no amount of damage that you are receiving and sometimes these fights are being lost.” Well, if you would want to put numbers on my record, whether they be a zero or number one, you will be doing so on my paycheck. That is what it is, plain and simple. The Beast is number one in the media for every 12 fights, that is correct. We see this and we know this. I’m number one in every media category. Number one in the entertainment, number one for the views, I am number one and I have a losing record. So, if I was to come in on a winning record, these small organizations, the last thing they would be able to do is afford my services and on top of it, what am I going to do? Be number one and number one? If I am, they are no longer going to be able to afford me. So I just won myself out of a job.
Other interesting things of note:
-After Helwani begs Sapp to stop with his “shtick” and just answer his questions honestly, Sapp more or less agrees to have sex with Ariel on pay-per-view if the price is right. We’ve never seen a moose impregnate a chickadee before, but we imagine that it would at the minimum last longer than twelve seconds.
-Sapp also tries to justify his loss to Minowaman as legit because Minowaman won the Super Hulk Tournament for Christ’s sake, and is therefore a champion. Technically, we must agree with him.
-Ariel makes a challenge to Sapp, not unlike our own, to see if he can last until exactly the one minute mark of his next fight, which is scheduled to take place in Kazakhstan. Clearly Ariel is not aware that Sapp can not count past eleventeen.
-Around the 2:50:00 mark, Sapp’s mind apparently short-circuits, and he launches into a series of bizarre accents and incoherent dialogue that no human on this planet including Sapp himself could even begin to understand. Helwani proceeds to hand him a verbal beatdown worse than any actual beatdown he has received in the past few years.
If there is some sort of Purple Heart handed out for MMA journalism, Helwani just earned it for suffering through that mind-numbing interview.