We all know how crappy it is to fly. We all know how crappy it is to travel around Christmas time. Junior dos Santos is combining the two, and it seems to be going very poorly.
Via Dos Santos’ Twitter account:
We spend 6 hours flying from Salvador to São Paulo normally this fight takes 2 hours. The airline company lie to us saying the airport was
— juniorcigano (@junior_cigano) December 25, 2012
Closed
— juniorcigano (@junior_cigano) December 25, 2012
It’s so desrespectiful. Now I lost my fight to Vegas and having a lot of other problems it’s very frustrating
— juniorcigano (@junior_cigano) December 25, 2012
And Saturday a have a world title fight it’s so important to me and to all my team for our life. This is how we are treat here
— juniorcigano (@junior_cigano) December 25, 2012
The story was relayed in both English and his native Portuguese.
What airline dos Santos was traveling on remains a mystery. There is a happy ending, though. The champ is apparently being bailed out by United Airlines:
O nome dele é Thiago Mendes e trabalha na UNITED. Me salvouAgradeço profundamente Thiago por atenção que teve conosco twitter.com/junior_cigano/…
— juniorcigano (@junior_cigano) December 25, 2012
Directly off Google Translate, this reads as “His name is Thiago Mendes and works in UNITED. I am deeply grateful Thiago saved for attention that had us.” So fans of JDS can extend their thanks, and give their money, to United Airlines, who will be bringing the champ stateside on time (more or less).
Dos Santos, as you probably know, is set to defend his heavyweight belt against Cain Velasquez this Saturday at UFC 155. The stacked card also features compelling bouts such as Joe Lauzon vs. Jim Miller, Yushin Okami vs. Alan Belcher and Melvin Guillard vs. Jamie Varner.
Dos Santos still lives and trains in his home country of Brazil, necessitating several flights to get stateside. UFC 155 will be held in Las Vegas this Saturday at the MGM Grand Arena.
The holidays always add to the already-grueling process of air travel, and flying on Christmas Eve can give headaches to even the likes of the UFC heavyweight champ.
Still, the UFC main event does not seem to be in jeopardy, so feel free to get excited for the biggest heavyweight bout since UFC on Fox 1 where, not coincidentally, JDS and Velasquez first crossed paths.
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