It was a pretty unique weekend for Al Iaquinta of the UFC.
After a protracted negotiation with the promotion over pay he deemed unsatisfactory, one that ended up with him banned from receiving fight night bonuses and sitting on the sidelines for two years in protest, “Raging” Al came back to the cage with a vengeance.
He obliterated grizzled veteran Diego Sanchez with a stylish series of right hands to secure the seventh knockout win of his career, but the fun was really only starting at that point.
In his MMA absence, Iaquinta has taken up real estate sales in his native New York. Still unhappy with his pay from the UFC, the pride of Long Island took the opportunity of his post-fight interview to draw attention to the business that’s providing some real cake for him: selling homes.
The move probably didn’t sit that well with UFC executives, who insist athletes are appropriately remunerated for parting with brain cells in the octagon every weekend and would surely cringe at an athlete pimping his real estate brand on live television during one of their events.
But it gets better. Or worse, depending on your perspective.
Soured that he was still banned from winning a bonus and probably sour with the UFC in general, Iaquinta elected to avoid any semblance of a high road once he left the arena. The lightweight took to Twitter to give the UFC some sass from his hotel as well, firing off some expletives before suggesting he may wreck his hotel room just for something to do (warning: tweets contain NSFW language):
The whole saga was highly entertaining and part of a general theme that seems to be emerging with Iaquinta, who has become one of the more entertaining guys on the roster due to his fighting style and his outspokenness outside the cage.
Here’s hoping the whole thing gets resolved in the near future so the sport can enjoy one of the world’s best 155ers more regularly, both inside the cage and out.
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