(*And* he’s a nacho stealer? When did you go so wrong, Cowboy?!!)
You gotta feel for Bobby Green right about now. In the past month, “King” has been scheduled for two different fights at UFC 178 — first against former Strikeforce title challenger Jorge Masvidal and then against Donald Cerrone in the evening’s co-main event, only to have both cancelled on short notice. The Masvidal fight was scrapped in favor of the Cerrone fight, which was then scrapped when Eddie Alvarez signed with the UFC and was subsequently booked against Cerrone. As a result, Green has now found himself without a dance partner for UFC 178.
It’d be easy to understand Green’s frustrations, given the likely massive paychecks he is missing out on for not being “high-profile” enough. Whether or not these frustrations played a part in his interview with The MMA Hour yesterday, during which he accused Cerrone of racist comments and inappropriate behavior with several female fans during a recent UFC Fan Expo, remains to be seen. Still though, Green held nothing back when discussing the behavior of his short-lived opponent:
He just said some racist stuff. He said stuff like, random racist stuff like ‘we gotta check him, we gotta check him, you know how black people like to steal.’ I’m like ‘what the,’ and I’m getting hot in front of thousands of people, all these people are here for the signing and they’re going ‘ohhhh’ and ‘ooooh’ and ‘ahhh.
We’re at the Expo signing, and Cerrone is going out, he is just the most obnoxious a–hole I’ve ever met. And I liked the guy, I was a fan of him at the time. So I’m actually excited to meet the guy. I’m cool with him, I shake his hand, you know, and he’s just been rude as hell. ‘Oh, no you don’t want to strike with me. You want to be a wrestler, I’ll make you a wrestler’. I’m like man, I’m cool with your boy, your boys are my boys, and me Vallie-Flagg are cool, and me and Derek Brunson is cool, and they’re both from his camp so I’m like, its cool, it’s all good bro, because I’m the new guy, I’m the new guy on the show.
I don’t want to make waves, it’s not good for business to make all these waves and you’re just coming in, you’re just a little fish. You can’t come in and be fighting these guys and making a bunch of noise when you’re a nobody. They’ll kick you right out of this really quick, you know? That Jon Jones-Cormier stuff happens? You’re outta here real quick if you’re not a Jon Jones or a Cormier.
And thus, the double standard of the UFC’s Code of Conduct is laid bare.
You know, I’d like to think that Green was just releasing some steam while possibly trying to talk his way into another fight with this interview, but of all the adjectives I’d use to describe Cerrone, “politically correct” is definitely not one of them. Or even “aware of what political correctness is.” As for the groping allegations, well, they are an unfortunate side effect of what happens when your promotion is run by a guy who refers to female reporters he likes as “sweetheart” and female reporters he dislikes as “c*nts.”
Again, a Code of Conduct that was worth more than the paper its printed on would likely help things out in these regards, but as Green mentioned, the UFC can’t afford to punish its bigger stars, especially when they have a fight lined up. So I guess the only solution is to twiddle our fingers and act like nothing’s happening. Yeah, that always works.
Green also had less than kind things to say about TUF: Smashes winner Norman Parke.
Norman Parke’s a douche, bro. Again, I’m a little fish coming into the industry and these guys are treating me with disrespect when I’m being nothing but respectful to them, you know? It’s funny how people act.
Basically it was more of a misunderstanding with Norman Parke, but Norman Parke said some things. There are certain things you don’t say to a man. You don’t treat a man a certain way. That’s automatically in the territory of fighting words. I never call a man the B word. I would never talk about a man’s wife. I would never talk about a man’s mother. Those are kind of like the rules for a man not to say about another man, because if you do … he called me a –ksucker b– something. I’m like, what did it come for, where did it come out, where did you feel the need to do that for.
You can listen to Green’s entire interview over at MMAFighting, and honestly, he comes across as nothing but a humble young guy who understands his place in the UFC. Whether or not that lends any credence to his accusations is up to you, but you’ve gotta appreciate Green’s restraint and professionalism when dealing with Cerrone in a sport where one of his peers nearly came to blows with a fictional character at a similar Expo.
