Stephen Thompson experienced what he calls his “most embarrassing UFC moment” ahead of his fight with Gilbert Burns on July 10.
‘Wonderboy’ squared off against Burns in the UFC 264 co-main event. The 38-year-old, who slumped to a decision defeat in the fight, has since revealed preparations for the bout didn’t go exactly according to plan.
The embarrassing moment took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, the day before UFC 264. Thompson was backstage with his father rehydrating after making weight as he waited for the doctors to give him the all-clear to fight.
“While you’re there, we have food and I’ve got like five shakes that I have to drink, along with some water,” Thompson said in a video posted to his YouTube channel. “Now I’m depleted of pretty much everything at this point, and these shakes have a ton of sodium, sugars, vitamins, minerals, potassium — it’s got everything you can think of in a shake, so it’s rough on the body if you chug it, right?”
“I’m sitting there with my dad with a bunch of fighters around me and people are coming over to try and talk to me, and I already drank my first drink along with like two water bottles,” Thompson continued. “And then I started getting — something started to happen to me.”
‘Wonderboy’ soon realised he had drunk the recovery shake too fast. He began to feel dizzy and queasy. The long-time welterweight contender signaled for his father’s help by pointing to a nearby trash can.
“Dad runs over there and pushes some UFC fighters away to try and get this thing to me — and he doesn’t get it to me,” Thompson said. “I projectile vomit everywhere. In front of the entire UFC roster. In front of everybody.
“And what was crazy before that, all these undercard fighters were coming up to get pictures with me. … Max ‘Pain’ (Griffin), super cool guy, I had just signed a card. He gave me one of my ‘Wonderboy’ cards, ‘Man, can you sign this for me?’ I signed it for him, he’s super cool, he’s such a nice guy, I love that guy. And as soon as he literally sat down, like right behind me…[Thompson makes an explosive vomit sound].
“It was like, you know when you see babies throw up? They’re just like [throws up] then they’re like [blank faced], and nothing happened? That was me.”
Thompson was just grateful his opponent wasn’t around to see him in such bad shape.
“I just look up and I was like, ‘Well…that was embarrassing,’” Thompson said.
“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, welcome to the club, man.’ I guess that’s happened to a lot of people. I guess because when you drink it too fast, you just projectile vomit. That’s its thing.
“I was kind of like, ‘Oh man, where’s Gilbert? I hope he didn’t see that,’” Thompson added with a laugh. “He was doing ESPN stuff, thank goodness.” (Transcribed by MMA Fighting)
Do you think this could have had an impact on how Stephen Thompson performed at UFC 264?