(Watch Randleman transform from Bruce Banner into The Incredibly Vengeful Hulk at 30 second mark.)
Back in August, we ran with a story on former UFC heavyweight champion and recently retired (at least according to his Wikipedia page) martial artist Kevin Randleman, who threatened to “rip a piece off” that “pussy” Matt Riddle via Twitter for allegedly disrespecting his wife back in the day. It’s not that we didn’t believe Randleman, it’s just that we were a little puzzled that Riddle, who always struck us as the Corky from Life Goes On of the MMA world (specifically, Corky during his “Fight the Power” phase), would even posses the ability to verbally berate anyone other than those “butter-toothed Brits.”
But whatever Riddle did say to Randleman’s wife must have been a doozy, because in his recent interview with MiddleEasy, Randleman absolutely lost his shit when Riddle’s name was brought up, calling him a “bitch ass motherfucking pussy” (4 STRIKE COMBO!!) among other things. Making it all the more hilarious was the fact that Randleman’s profanity-laden rant came less than 30 seconds after he discussed what it was like to finally be a role model for his son now that he was removed from all the negative publicity he’s received in the past. You just don’t see that kind of irony everyday.
After the jump: The low down on what allegedly led to the beef between Riddle and Randleman, as told by a UGer claiming to be a former ring announcer for Pure MMA.
Here’s the 411 about what’s going on that led to this. FRAT warning, as there’s a lot behind it.
In May, Pure MMA held their second show in Wilkes Barre, PA (the show with Din Thomas vs. Cody Bollinger and Jason Dent vs. Rustam Khalibov as main and co-main event. Waylon Lowe also fought on it.) I am Pure’s ring announcer and also have helped a gentleman I consider a good friend, Bryan Slater, in his first two shows. Through this, I have gotten to know Matt Riddle, who was at both shows and lent his name and expertise to Bryan as a defacto (non paying) partner. Matt is also one I consider a friend.
Back in late March, early April: Bryan asked me to reach out to some names in the MMA community who might be willing to come do a live appearance at the May 12th show, as so to add more name value to it. I reached out to gentlemen I’m friends with: Marcus Davis, Anthony Johnson, Johnny Bedford and Randleman. All of these gentlemen were given the same price figure as to how much they were going to be paid for it. I can tell you first hand, from my involvement in helping set it up, they all were pretty much told the same amount and agreed to it. Whether or not there was more discussions past that point, I’m not sure. However, at time frame when I was involved, all seemed to agree on the same price. I do know Randleman offered to do a seminar if more money was involved, but a gym was not able to be secured for this to happen. Thus, it seemed as though each were getting the same set amount.
On Bryan’s end, as he always does, he paid in full everyone exactly what he said he would. He also changed Bedford’s flight time on his own dime, because John’s brother in law took a last second fight the Friday night he was supposed to fly in to Scranton.
The day we were all set to leave, following the event, Randleman got ahold of me about getting paid. I told him I’d get it for him. When the price figure he said I was to get for him however; it was $500 more than what I thought was the agreed upon price, the same one that Marcus, Anthony and Johnny had received. Upon speaking to Bryan, he and Kevin worked out an agreement where Bryan gave him the money he said he would, and would send him the remainder of the $500 in the mail via check. Bryan did indeed send him this extra $500 dollars in the mail. Kevin told Bryan he received it but the check was either lost or eaten..
In the interim, between Point A and now (and after Bryan sent Kevin the remainder of the $500 he owed him), Bryan turned over financial obligations of Pure MMA to a third partner. Kevin was then put in touch with Adam, who was put in touch with Matt Riddle to recoop the remainder of the money he felt he was owed.
I can’t and won’t speak on behalf of Matt, however from what he’s told me, there was numerous contact made to him via telephone at all hours of the day by both Mr. and Mrs. Randleman. Matt reportedly tried to explain the situation, however there was no middle ground met.
I can tell you right now, I’ve been around Matt regularly.. I’ve never ONCE seen him so much as raise his voice, let alone disrespect a woman. And I consider both he and Kevin friends here. This is being said from the middle man’s perspective.
Sorry for the FRAT. Hopefully this clears some air.
Not to pick sides, but we totally want to be on Riddle’s side given the evidence at hand. Then again, Randleman’s passion over how things went down doesn’t exactly paint him as a liar. We guess the only way for these two to settle this classic case of “he said, he said” beef would be to bring Randleman out of retirement for one last shot in the UFC. Sure, he’s dropped something like 99 of his last 100 fights, but this surely fits the “fun” criteria the UFC has adopted regarding fight-booking these days, so why not have these two throw down?
But seriously, go back and watch that Life Goes On clip and try to convince us that Riddle didn’t lift some of his striking techniques from ol’ Corky. You will fail.
