Fan favorite lightweight Nate Diaz has been out of action since his thrilling five-round majority decision loss to rival Conor McGregor at last August’s UFC 202. The enigmatic Stockton slugger has largely stayed out of the public eye since aside from demanding he would only fight McGregor in a trilogy bout, even demanding a $20
Fan favorite lightweight Nate Diaz has been out of action since his thrilling five-round majority decision loss to rival Conor McGregor at last August’s UFC 202.
The enigmatic Stockton slugger has largely stayed out of the public eye since aside from demanding he would only fight McGregor in a trilogy bout, even demanding a $20 million fee to do so at one point. He also reportedly turned down a fight with former 155-pound champ Eddie Alvarez at next week’s (Sat., May 13, 2017) UFC 211 from Dallas, prompting many to speculate when – or even if – the younger Diaz brother will return to the octagon.
McGregor’s manager, who also manages top-ranked UFC lightweight contender Tony Ferguson, thinks Diaz needs to ‘earn’ a rematch with McGregor by fighting and defeating ‘El Cucuy’ while the Irish champion is off pursuing a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
A few weeks have passed since the now infamous UFC 199 scenario regarding well-known mixed martial arts journalist Ariel Helwani. To sum up the situation, Helwani and two of his colleagues were essentially kicked out of the arena after Helwani broke the news of Brock Lesnar’s UFC 200 return before the promotion could do so
A few weeks have passed since the now infamous UFC 199 scenario regarding well-known mixed martial arts journalist Ariel Helwani. To sum up the situation, Helwani and two of his colleagues were essentially kicked out of the arena after Helwani broke the news of Brock Lesnar’s UFC 200 return before the promotion could do so themselves.
Helwani and company had their credentials removed and the UFC had issued a lifetime ban against the reporter. UFC President Dana White had even went as far to say that Helwani would have to buy a ticket if he planned on attending the blockbuster July 9th card from Las Vegas.
Needless to say, Helwani went on his show, The MMA Hour, and detailed not only this specific situation, but his rocky history with the UFC as well in a dark and emotional segment. Not so long after, his lifetime ban was lifted and his credentials were reinstated.
Since then, the situation has appeared to have been put to rest, although White clearly hasn’t forgotten about it. Recently appearing on the inaugural edition of the UFC Unfiltered Podcast with Jim Norton and Matt Serra, White blasted Helwani, saying that the journalist threw a ‘pity party’:
“I know that he threw a big pity party for himself and all that sh*t, but there was a lot more to it. A lot more people were involved in that thing, and it almost blew up a huge relationship that I wouldn’t even get into publicly. That’s why we just came out with a statement, and I don’t know, it was dirty. He knows it was dirty, and he threw a big pity party for himself, crying on camera and sh*t. Just ridiculous.” White said.
Despite the harsh comments, White admitted that he’s done a tremendous amount to boost Helwani’s career over the years, a statement that Helwani has also confirmed on multiple occasions:
“Ariel Helwani knows I’ve done a lot of s–t for Ariel Helwani,” added White when speaking on the podcast.
In the end, although his credentials were reinstated, Helwani doesn’t appear to be the UFC President’s favorite person:
“Well, he got his credential back I wouldn’t say he’s in decent graces. We built that promo, and a lot of people were quiet about it. It was for the fans, and for that wow factor to be there, and go oh wow Brock’s back, and the way that he the way that he did it had a lot of people pointing fingers at each other.”
The brash and outspoken UFC boss also called Helwani’s actions a ‘weasel move’, and claimed that he had made it ‘all about Ariel’.
(Not pictured: Anything Fallon Fox has actually done in the cage.)
Let me make one thing clear from the very beginning: I’m not trying to say that it wasn’t newsworthy — even inspirational — when Fallon Foxfirst came out as a transgender MMA fighter. Transgender individuals are extremely prone to harassment, discrimination, violence and bigoted stereotyping — all tragically evident by looking at the Facebook posts and tweets that have been directed at Fox since she came out roughly one month ago. I am in full support of her rights to be socially acknowledged and treated as any other woman would be treated outside of the cage.
Yet during this past month, Fallon Fox has received more attention for simply existing (she’s 0-0 since coming out) than most professionals have received for actually fighting. We’ve seen numerous fighters come forward to offer their opinions on whether or not Fox should be allowed to compete against women. Some have managed to do so in a reasonable, intelligent manner. Others have spoken about “it” as if she isn’t even human. For that matter, even people who aren’t MMA fighters have expressed a willingness to compete against her.
Mind you, this was all before Matt Mitrione called Fox “a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak” on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour,” earning him an indefinite suspension from the UFC.
Despite the punishment, UFC fighters are still willing to discuss Fallon Fox — who, let’s remember, doesn’t even fight in the UFC — with reporters. Yesterday, The New York Post published an interview with one of the most talented, popular, and accomplished female fighters of all time, Ronda Rousey. A total of zero questions had anything to do with Rousey’s own future in the sport, instead focusing on how she feels about potentially fighting Fallon Fox:
“She can try hormones, chop her pecker off, but it’s still the same bone structure a man has,” Rousey told The Post. “It’s an advantage. I don’t think it’s fair.”
(Not pictured: Anything Fallon Fox has actually done in the cage.)
Let me make one thing clear from the very beginning: I’m not trying to say that it wasn’t newsworthy — even inspirational — when Fallon Foxfirst came out as a transgender MMA fighter. Transgender individuals are extremely prone to harassment, discrimination, violence and bigoted stereotyping — all tragically evident by looking at the Facebook posts and tweets that have been directed at Fox since she came out roughly one month ago. I am in full support of her rights to be socially acknowledged and treated as any other woman would be treated outside of the cage.
Yet during this past month, Fallon Fox has received more attention for simply existing (she’s 0-0 since coming out) than most professionals have received for actually fighting. We’ve seen numerous fighters come forward to offer their opinions on whether or not Fox should be allowed to compete against women. Some have managed to do so in a reasonable, intelligent manner. Others have spoken about “it” as if she isn’t even human. For that matter, even people who aren’t MMA fighters have expressed a willingness to compete against her.
Mind you, this was all before Matt Mitrione called Fox “a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak” on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour,” earning him an indefinite suspension from the UFC.
Despite the punishment, UFC fighters are still willing to discuss Fallon Fox — who, let’s remember, doesn’t even fight in the UFC — with reporters. Yesterday, The New York Post published an interview with one of the most talented, popular, and accomplished female fighters of all time, Ronda Rousey. A total of zero questions had anything to do with Rousey’s own future in the sport, instead focusing on how she feels about potentially fighting Fallon Fox:
“She can try hormones, chop her pecker off, but it’s still the same bone structure a man has,” Rousey told The Post. “It’s an advantage. I don’t think it’s fair.”
Rousey said Mitrione worded his views “extremely poorly” and believes the UFC was justified in suspending the heavyweight fighter. But she thinks his sentiments came from the right place. In Rousey’s opinion, Mitrione believes Fox is still a man, who wants to beat up women for a living.
“I understand the UFC doesn’t want to be associated with views like that,” Rousey said. “I’m also glad they didn’t straight cut him.”
Speaking of questionable word choices, I can’t help but feel that her usage of the word “pecker” is going to create an overreaction among the mainstream media outlets. But I digress.
It’s right around now — when accomplished athletes such as Ronda Rousey and Alexis Davis are fielding questions about Fallon Fox instead of their own careers — that we in the MMA media need to stop and ask ourselves what we’re actually doing. Are we really respecting a woman’s right to be treated as any other female, or are we treating Fallon Fox like a sideshow and milking her transgender status for as many page views as we can get?
Because — let’s be honest — if we’re truly concerned with treating Fallon Fox the way that we’d treat any other woman, we wouldn’t continue to force her name into interviews and conference calls. As Jonathan Snowden recently argued, Fox is a thirty-seven year old fighter competing in a small-time, regional promotion that even most hardcore MMA fans wouldn’t recognize. She is 2-0 in her professional career, but has yet to fight an opponent who has actually won a professional bout. She has not been offered a contract by the UFC, Invicta, or Bellator. This is all to say that she hasn’t accomplished anything yet that justifies the non-stop media attention that she has received for the past month.
Giving Fox undue attention over her transgender status isn’t embracing her so much as it’s exploiting her. Forcing her into conversations with UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez isn’t being tolerant, it’s being a carnival barker — we’re emphasizing what makes her different in hopes of generating reactions from other people. Emphasizing her reputation over her skills and accomplishments wades into Kimbo Slice territory; that’s bound to make the fans’ reactions that much more harsh when she actually loses. Also, when former UFC heavyweight Sean McCorkle starts looking for ways to involve himself in this story by taking credit for Mitrione’s suspension-earning jokes, it’s safe to say that we’re no longer coming from a place of acceptance.
This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to make the distinction between Fallon Fox the woman and Fallon Fox the fighter. As of now, there is no conclusive evidence that transgender females do not have unfair competitive advantages over their opponents. There is research that suggests that unfair advantages exist. There is also research that suggests they do not. Another “MMA fighter says Fox has/doesn’t have a competitive advantage” article isn’t going to bring anything new to the discussion.
But you know what will bring something new to the discussion? The result of her fight against Allana Jones on May 24th. After that we might be able to gauge what kind of future — if any — she has in our sport. We’ll be able to publish a story about Fox that’s actually pertinent to what she has been doing in the cage. And if we’re truly concerned with treating her as an equal, we can hold off on cramming her into our headlines until then.
Despite being fresh off of a nineteen-second knockout victory over Philip De Fries at last weekend’s UFC on FUEL TV 9, it may be a while before we see Matt Mitrione in the Octagon again.
Earlier today, Mitrione was a guest on The MMA Hour, where he wrapped up his appearance with some jokes he had prepared for host Ariel Helwani. He started off with a joke about Aleksander Emelianenko’s unretirement, a joke about how he considered finishing De Fries – a Llyod Irvin student – with a rape choke, and a joke about how transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox should call herself “The Queen of the Buffaloes” in reference to “Silence of the Lambs.”
If he just stopped there, we probably wouldn’t even be talking about his appearance on the show, but he wasn’t done making jokes at Fallon’s expense just yet.
“Holy shit, I have not seen a man beat a woman like that since Chris Brown beat Rihanna. That is exceptional how he just beats innocent, unknowing women like that. Incredible,” Mitrione continued. “Since he’s obviously looking for any way to break or avoid the rules regarding fighting, if he ever fights again – which I hope he doesn’t – but if he ever fights again and loses to a woman, is he going to charge that woman with a hate crime because she imposing on his freedom as a tranny.”
At this point, Ariel Helwani intervened to ask Mitrione why he kept referring to Fallon Fox as a man. This resulted on a fairly heated rant from Meathead, which we have video of after the jump.
Despite being fresh off of a nineteen-second knockout victory over Philip De Fries at last weekend’s UFC on FUEL TV 9, it may be a while before we see Matt Mitrione in the Octagon again.
Earlier today, Mitrione was a guest on The MMA Hour, where he wrapped up his appearance with some jokes he had prepared for host Ariel Helwani. He started off with a joke about Aleksander Emelianenko’s unretirement, a joke about how he considered finishing De Fries – a Llyod Irvin student – with a rape choke, and a joke about how transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox should call herself “The Queen of the Buffaloes” in reference to “Silence of the Lambs.”
If he just stopped there, we probably wouldn’t even be talking about his appearance on the show, but he wasn’t done making jokes at Fallon’s expense just yet.
“Holy shit, I have not seen a man beat a woman like that since Chris Brown beat Rihanna. That is exceptional how he just beats innocent, unknowing women like that. Incredible,” Mitrione continued. “Since he’s obviously looking for any way to break or avoid the rules regarding fighting, if he ever fights again – which I hope he doesn’t – but if he ever fights again and loses to a woman, is he going to charge that woman with a hate crime because she imposing on his freedom as a tranny?”
At this point, Ariel Helwani intervened to ask Mitrione why he kept referring to Fallon Fox as a man. This resulted on a fairly heated rant from Meathead, which we have video of after the jump.
“Because she’s not a he. He’s a he. He’s chromosomally a man. He had a gender change, not a sex change. He’s still a man. He was a man for 31 years. Thirty-one years. That’s a couple years younger than I am. He’s a man. Six years of taking performance de-hancing drugs, you think is going to change all that? That’s ridiculous. That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak, and I mean that because you lied on your license to beat up women. That’s disgusting. You should be embarrassed yourself. And the fact that Florida licensed him because California licensed him or whoever the hell did it, it’s an embarrassment to us as fighters, as a sport, and we all should protest that.”
The UFC reacted quickly to Mitrione’s rant, suspending Matt Mitrione and issuing the following statement on their website earlier today:
The UFC was appalled by the transphobic comments made by heavyweight Matt Mitrione today in an interview on the ‘MMA Hour.’
The organization finds Mr. Mitrione’s comments offensive and wholly unacceptable and — as a direct result of this significant breach of the UFC’s code of conduct – Mr. Mitrione’s UFC contract has been suspended and the incident is being investigated.
The UFC is a friend and ally of the LGBT community, and expects and requires all 450 of its athletes to treat others with dignity and respect.
*Super Friends announcer voice* MEANWHILE, IN THE DINING ROOM…
If you thought watching the sixteenth season of The Ultimate Fighter was hell, just wait until you hear how bad it was to be one of the show’s participants, and a winning one at that. As finalist Mike Ricci will tell you, TUF 16 wasn’t exactly Dancing With the Stars, where everyone got to take their perfect-bodied Ukranian supermodel partner home and have their way with them (although to be fair, the above video makes the case that there certainly was a lot of banging going on). No, TUF was much, much uglier. In fact, during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Ricci admitted that he hated his time on the show so much — despite being a finalist, mind you — that he wished he could sue the show for the “psychological damages” he suffered:
It was an absolute nightmare, I wanted to sue for psychological damage, I wasn’t the same person. I actually thought I had a case, ‘I’m not the same person, I can do this and win.’ But, I felt like don’t get me wrong, I knew what I was getting into I knew how I was going to react. Even some of the producers in the house toward the end were like, ‘Geez, you’re the most institutionalized fighter we’ve ever seen, we’ve done 11 seasons and we’ve never seen anyone like you, you’re like a robot now.
Much more from this interview is after the jump.
*Super Friends announcer voice* MEANWHILE, IN THE DINING ROOM…
If you thought watching the sixteenth season of The Ultimate Fighter was hell, just wait until you hear how bad it was to be one of the show’s participants, and a winning one at that. As finalist Mike Ricci will tell you, TUF 16 wasn’t exactly Dancing With the Stars, where everyone got to take their perfect-bodied Ukranian supermodel partner home and have their way with them (although to be fair, the above video makes the case that there certainly was a lot of banging going on). No, TUF was much, much uglier. In fact, during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Ricci admitted that he hated his time on the show so much — despite being a finalist, mind you — that he wished he could sue the show for the “psychological damages” he suffered:
It was an absolute nightmare, I wanted to sue for psychological damage, I wasn’t the same person. I actually thought I had a case, ‘I’m not the same person, I can do this and win.’ But, I felt like don’t get me wrong, I knew what I was getting into I knew how I was going to react. Even some of the producers in the house toward the end were like, ‘Geez, you’re the most institutionalized fighter we’ve ever seen, we’ve done 11 seasons and we’ve never seen anyone like you, you’re like a robot now.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “How will Danga shoehorn a Shawshank Redemption reference into the next couple sentences?” Truth be told, I thought about it. Hell, I even wrote a couple quotes down. But I’m not going to do it, Nation, because I honestly feel for Ricci here and wouldn’t want to reduce his plight to a few lines from a film, albeit a great one at that. Because CagePotato is kind of like the TUF set, if you replaced wannabe fighters with wannabe writers. In here, we’re important men, we’re educated men. On the outside, we’re nothing, just a bunch of used up cons-DAMN IT.
Anyway, Ricci also claimed that it was the time away from his family and friends that truly made the experience unbearable. Again, I just want to clarify that we’re talking about the favorite to win the season here:
I was taken away from my family and from my friends and from life, you literally, you vanish, you’re gone, there’s no sign of you whatsoever. Its almost like to everyone in the outside world you’re dead and you’re gone. There’s no sign of you whatsoever. And, things like for instance I didn’t know what was happening with my people on the outside, it was upsetting, people had gotten new jobs or changed their hairstyle or experienced different things I missed out on, it just upset me. It still upsets me to this day.
OK, Ricci, now I’m kind of glad I went the Shawshank route when breaking down your case. If the sacrifice you had to make in order to launch your career – the career you chose, by the way – was to miss out on a friend getting a haircut or telling you that they now work at the Jiffy Lube instead of the Outback’s Steakhouse (quite a career change, I realize), then I’d say you’ve got fuck all to complain about. For Christ’s sake, Michael Chiesa lost both his father AND his home last season, and cried about it for approximately five seconds. But yeah, continue to talk about the dark, depressing loneliness that eats at your soul because you missed out on a trip to Fantastic Sam’s.
So why, one would ask, would Ricci choose to partake in such a venture, knowing full well how grueling TUF can be from the 15 previous seasons that documented this exact process?
I feel it was an opportunity for me to get ahead and go faster than I would have by the usual route, fighting your way up on undercards. I know that it was a lot of work that was going to be crammed into a short amount of time, but if I looked good and was successful … I feel like I brought in just as much exposure and gone as far forward fighting four fights for TUF than I would have four fights outside of TUF. But the time status is those four fights could be in a year, and I did it all in the span of a summer. That’s why I did it.
So there you have it, in order to become semi-famous in one’s trade, one might be forced to neglect their tanning regimen for a few months. No wonder Colin Fletcher is one of the TUF: Smashes finalists, dude must have been neglecting his G.T.L. for years now.
(Trust us, when this moment arrives you will be doing anything but laughing.)
When Jason “Mayhem” Miller was fired from the UFC, he was basically left with two career paths to follow. He could follow the path of guys like Joey Beltran or — to a lesser degree — Anthony Johnson, which is to say, recognizing his mistakes/flaws and trying to earn his way back into the promotion through hard work, a couple decent wins, and in his case, probably some begging. Or, he could take a page out of someone like Rampage Jackson’s book, which consists of complaining a lot, going on nonsensical Twitter rants, and acting like a delusional pyschopath at every possible turn.
It saddens us to inform you that Miller has apparently chosen the path of Charlie Sheen.
There are simply no words that aptly describe Miller’s recent appearance on The MMA Hour, but I’ll try to use a few: batshit, kerfuffle, delirium, wantwit, rudesby. Like sharting in a hot tub while on a blind date.
In a terribly misguided attempt to plug his upcoming film, Here Comes the Boom, Miller appeared on the radio show as his character from the movie, Lucky Patrick. But what began as a simple ruse quickly devolved into one of the most bizarre and outright sad things we have witnessed in the continually depressing downfall of “Mayhem” Miller. He referred to “Arius Heelwani” as a “Jew,” refused to break character or answer questions as to his current mental state (or perhaps answered them all, really), and vehemently stormed off the set 45 minutes short of its expected run time. As Helwani noted, Miller was clearly attempting to channel Andy Kaufman, but unfortunately came off looking a lot more like Crispin Glover.
Video after the jump.
(Trust us, when this moment arrives you will be doing anything but laughing.)
When Jason “Mayhem” Miller was fired from the UFC, he was basically left with two career paths to follow. He could follow the path of guys like Joey Beltran or — to a lesser degree — Anthony Johnson, which is to say, recognizing his mistakes/flaws and trying to earn his way back into the promotion through hard work, a couple decent wins, and in his case, probably some begging. Or, he could take a page out of someone like Rampage Jackson’s book, which consists of complaining a lot, going on nonsensical Twitter rants, and acting like a delusional pyschopath at every possible turn.
It saddens us to inform you that Miller has apparently chosen the path of Charlie Sheen.
There are simply no words that aptly describe Miller’s recent appearance on The MMA Hour, but I’ll try to use a few: batshit, kerfuffle, delirium, wantwit, rudesby. Like sharting in a hot tub while on a blind date.
In a terribly misguided attempt to plug his upcoming film, Here Comes the Boom, Miller appeared on the radio show as his character from the movie, Lucky Patrick. But what began as a simple ruse quickly devolved into one of the most bizarre and outright sad things we have witnessed in the continually depressing downfall of “Mayhem” Miller. He referred to “Arius Heelwani” as a “Jew,” refused to break character or answer questions as to his current mental state (or perhaps answered them all, really), and vehemently stormed off the set 45 minutes short of its expected run time. As Helwani noted, Miller was clearly attempting to channel Andy Kaufman, but unfortunately came off looking a lot more like Crispin Glover.
Ariel was willing to play along with Miller’s shtick at first, but when it began to wear thin roughly two minutes in, Helwani tried to steer the conversation in a somewhat comprehensible direction. It is at this point that Mayhem decided to go full retard. I should not have to warn you about why one should never go full retard.
Helwani’s reaction quickly changed from jovial to concerned as he continued to try and “talk to Mayhem.” Suddenly, it’s as if we are watching a doctor try and reach the traumatic center of a schizophrenic child, and the gravity of Mayhem’s plight begins to settle in. After a few minutes of pointless back-and-forth, Miller became enraged that Helwani kept referring to him as “Mayhem” and stormed off the set amidst a cloud of cuss words and childish banter.
Ariel took a few minutes to collect himself and gave the following response:
Now, we understand that this write-up is only keeping Miller’s name on all of our tongues like he set out to do, but we are legitimately concerned for Mayhem’s well-being at this point. The fact that he wouldn’t even talk straight with Ariel when the segment was over should be the only indication we need as to the direction he is heading. We don’t know about you, but while watching the fourteenth season of The Ultimate Fighter, we thought Mayhem came across as a generally likable and intelligent guy. The fact that he’s let himself disintegrate into this is utterly tragic, and we sincerely hope that it doesn’t end in Miller harming himself or those around him.
I’m not normally one to offer inspirational words of advice, but I would recommend Miller take some time and reflect upon those penned by Marilyn vos Savant:
Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
