Rick Story was on a six-fight winning streak heading into the June 26, UFC Live event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Story’s tear through the UFC’s welterweight division came to a screeching halt that night when he lost to Charlie Brenneman via unanimous decision. Story then suffered the same result at UFC 139, falling to Martin Kampmann. A somewhat troubling common thread has followed those two losses and that is, Story has followed each with an excuse as to why he lost.
Story had originally been booked to face Nate Marquardt in the main event of the UFC Live fight card. However, Marquardt was forced from the card, as well as the UFC, for having elevated testosterone levels during his pre-fight medicals.
Charlie Brenneman subsequently replaced Marquardt the day before the event took place. Brenneman had been scheduled to face TJ Grant on the same fight card, but Grant was forced from the card on June 22 due to illness.
Brenneman took the fight to Story and walked away from the CONSOL Energy Center with the win. After the loss, Story offered the following, “It was a completely different game plan that we had to adjust to on short notice. I was training kickboxing for a taller Muay Thai type striker with Jiu-Jitsu, not a shorter aggressive wrestler. I should be able to do better against takedowns against wrestlers because my background is wrestling, but Charlie did well and he came out in top.”
As excuses go, it’s not the worst, but it’s still an excuse. If you look at the other side of the coin, Brenneman didn’t even have a fight booked when he stepped in to face Story. Story, at the very least, had been ready for a fight the next day.
Brenneman essentially came in thinking he wasn’t even on the card and took a fight against a fighter that he too hadn’t been training for, the difference being that Brenneman overcame both of those obstacles and won.
Fast-forward to November 19 and Story is again the one standing with his hand by his side watching his opponent, Martin Kampmann, getting his hand raised in victory. Following the most recent loss, Story took to twitter to proclaim, “I wanted to apologize to all of my fans for my last performance I ruptured my bursa sack and tore my meniscus in the second round. I lost all strength and made it difficult to fight.”
It should be noted that the UFC 139 medical suspensions did not mention any injury to Story other than a chin laceration.
The takeaway from both of these post-fight statements seems to be that Rick Story’s opponents didn’t defeat him, but the circumstances defeated him. These statements are insulting to his opponent’s victorious performance and reek of poor sportsmanship. Story’s excuses are unnecessary at best and a slap in the face to Brenneman and Kampmann at worst.
It needs to be said that Story is not the only fighter that has used this tactic; we have seen it many times in the past. Story is just the fighter with the latest incident of throwing this type of nonsense out there and we all know that he will not be the last.
This type of excuse making really needs to stop, in all sports, for it belittles the victor and demeans the one making the excuses.
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