Cody McKenzie is one weird dude. That’s been known since his days on The Ultimate Fighter, but the owner of the McKenzie-tine may have just upped the ante of being weird at the UFC on Fox 9 event.
It started with his fight with Sam Stout, in which McKenzie came into the contest wearing a pair of basketball shorts with the price tags still on. Bloody Elbow has the full breakdown of the story, and it’s clear that UFC president Dana White wasn’t happy.
Yeah how did ya like that one? That was fantastic right? What that was was UFC amateur hour. We have a guy backstage that polices all the things, when you got a guy going out there…first of all, if it’s not bad enough that he’s out there with basketball shorts on, how about that he’s still got the price tag on the shorts during the fight! Yeah, so it was pretty embarrassing.
Even worse for the UFC, as White would point out, this happened on a Fox show, not a pay-per-view. It’s not exactly the way you want to portray your sport as being professional.
Here’s a screenshot, in case you missed it. Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports explained that McKenzie forgot his fight shorts at the hotel and had to run across the street to buy a pair of shorts to prevent the fight from being delayed.
The struggling fighter also had no sponsor banner and only one man in his corner.
That’s strange enough, but of course it wouldn’t be a story about McKenzie if the weirdness stopped there.
Adam Hill of LVRJ reported that McKenzie downed a couple shots and then had two beers, but kinda spit one up on himself in the tunnel below the arena. Hill also said McKenzie attempted to take his beer outside to have a smoke but wasn’t allowed, which, according to Hill, was probably for the best, considering he was dribbling blood.
Oh, and if McKenzie were hoping to return the shorts for a refund, it would’ve helped had he remembered his shorts.
Truly a weird series of events that has somehow made McKenzie one of the most talked-about fighters following UFC on Fox 9 despite losing a unanimous decision on the prelims. He’s 3-4 in his UFC tenure, and the UFC may decide McKenzie’s strangeness isn’t worth the trouble.
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