(“In the arms of the angel, flyyy awaaayyyyy from here…” | Jeff Curran Twitter)
WEC and UFC veteran Jeff Curran once fought at 155 pounds, but these days the thirty five year-old is campaigning at 125 pounds in an effort to give some new fire to his career. He looked serious about his effort to get back into the big show when he signed to fight top prospect Sergio Pettis at RFA 8 this past Friday in Milwaukee, WI.
Pettis is undefeated and nineteen years old. He’s also the younger brother of top UFC moneyweight contender Anthony Pettis. You may have heard that Pettis won Friday night, but not against Curran. The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt pulled out at the last minute and was replaced by Dillard Pegg.
Pettis finished Pegg with apparent ease in the first round, but the real story here is the reason why Curran says he pulled out of the fight in the first place.
Curran didn’t get injured. His dog did.
We haven’t seen or heard much of an explanation about the situation from Curran yet, but he was busy defending himself on Twitter this past weekend. Turns out, Curran’s family dog was injured badly, breaking both arms recently. As a result, Curran pulled out of the RFA 8 bout with Pettis.
“The only people that deserve explanation of my reasons to pull from this fight was @RFAfighting and my team/family. None of anyones Biz!” Curran tweeted on June 21st.
He went on, “i am a 16 year pro who never missed dude. i fought sick, injured after family tragedy. grow up”
The fighter suggested through his tweets that it wasn’t simply about his dog, but also about supporting his kids and being there for his wife who needed help during this time of difficulty.
When the twitterverse criticized Curran for his decision, things got real. “introduce yourself to me if u ever see me, i will knock your teeth in.. no charge,” he replied to one critic.
“remove ‘dog lover’ from your bio and add ‘family hater’ to it. then your comment will fit your profile,” he tweeted at another.
A full picture of the Curran family saga isn’t yet available, but you can check out the strange, long string of tweets on his account for yourself. It kinda sounds like his dog got messed up, and it would have been a gigantic hassle for his wife to take care of it and a houseful of kids, to say nothing of the business affairs from his gym, while he went away for a few days to fight. What do we know?
In any case, Curran says that his dog is on the mend. What would you degenerates have done if you were in Curran’s shoes this past week: Stay at home with the family and crippled dog or head to Milwaukee for a weekend of fighting, hookers and blow?