Al Iaquinta has been on a Twitter tirade against the UFC as of late for not giving him a bonus for his knockout win over Diego Sanches at UFC Nashville.
‘Raging’ has been telling some crazy stories about his working relationship with the UFC, but one UFC official tells MMA Junkie that those simply aren’t true:
“The stories he’s telling are not true,” the official said. “The premise for his whole beef is not accurate, and I think he’s trying to justify the fact that he thinks he should still get bonuses.”
The UFC official also confirmed that Iaquinta’s fight against Sanchez was the first of a three-fight ban in which he is not eligible for win bonuses.
This is a result of three separate instances in which Iaquinta has caused problems for the promotion. First off he destroyed an MGM Grand hotel room in Vegas after his UFC 183 win over Joe Lauzon. Second, he cursed on live TV at the crowd following a controversial split decision win over Jorge Masvidal.
And last, but certainly not least, he skipped the 2015 UFC fighter summit in Las Vegas. Iaquinta claims he warned the UFC he would not be attending, but the UFC official says that’s not true:
“His story about the summit, the part that he left out was that he never called us to tell us he didn’t get on the plane,” the UFC official said. “He never called us to tell us not to send a car to the airport to pick him up. We had all these arrangements for the hotel. All these things were arranged, and he never bothered to call us to tell us he wasn’t coming, which I think would make anyone mad.
“We sent a car to the airport to pick him up, and he wasn’t there. He never called us to say, ‘I’m not coming.’ Not calling us, not telling us that he wasn’t going to show up, having to send a car to the airport to pick him up, literally, and him not being there – how immature is that? To not call and say, ‘I didn’t make the flight. I’m not coming.’ It’s immature.”
Iaquinta comes off of a lengthy two-year layoff in which he wasn’t on the best of terms with the UFC. He was also kept out-of-action due to a lingering knee injury, which he claims he needed to beg the UFC to pay for.
Again, the UFC official claims that to be a lie as well:
“It was a chronic injury, and since it was a chronic injury and not something that happened while training or fighting for us, the insurance denied it,” a UFC official said. “There were also a number of alternatives that could have been done, but Al insisted on using a specific surgeon back east. The UFC paid tens of thousands of dollars to cover that out of our pocket without any obligation to do so since it was a chronic injury, which means it happened over years and years and years.
“Mr. Iaquinta never once called the medical team or (UFC President) Dana (White) to say thank you. Instead, he talks about how he had to beg for it, which is not true. … We agreed to do it. We paid for it. The entire medical team assisted through his surgeon getting this done and getting it paid, and Al never once called anyone to thank them. Instead he goes out on the Internet and says he had to beg for it, which is absolutely, 100 percent false. That’s a lie.”
The relationship between Iaquinta and the UFC continues to prove to be a rocky one, and the UFC official says once ‘Raging’ begins to take responsibility for his actions things will get a whole lot better for him:
“Dana, (former UFC co-owner) Lorenzo (Feritta) and our team worked for weeks on this thing and were able to get him the surgery, and it was successful; instead of thanking us, he goes on the Internet and taunts Dana, who paid for it,” a UFC official said.”I think when Al learns to take responsibility for his actions, he’ll be a lot better off as a person.”
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