Ariel Helwani: "Om jag har nyheter och håller dem inne gör jag inte mitt jobb"

Det fanns inte många glädjeämnen när Ariel Helwani berättade om det som hände under UFC 199 i lördags. Det ska ha varit negativitet från Helwanis sida som gjorde att detta hände.

Ariel Helwanis ögon var inte torra. Det enda ämnet i kvällens The MMA Hour var den kontroversiella händelsen i lördags då Helwani med team blev utslängda från UFC 199. Detta sade han om händelsen.

”Right before the main event a member of the UFC PR staff came to me and said that ’Dana White wants to speak to you.’ Michael Bisping was about to fight Luke Rockhold and I had a feeling that this wasn’t gonna be the most pleasant conversation and I didn’t feel like anything good was going to come out of it. So I said ’look, I want to watch this fight, I want to cover it, take it in. Maybe after I don’t really want to go back and talk to him. A couple of minutes later a higher ranking PR person came to me in a very serious way and said ’you have to go to the back.’ I said ’well, I’m not going to the back unless my colleague Casey can come with me’… I wasn’t going to the storm alone…

So we go to the back… and Dana White is there, some other members of his team are there and he just says to me ’you’re out, get out of here! You’re done, we don’t want you here anymore, go to Bellator!’ I said ’Why?’ He said ’You’re too negative!’

He said ’Lorenzo (Fertitta) wanted you out of Fox and that happened and he wants you out of here and so you’re out.’ I will say, a lot was said in this conversation. I think initially he just wanted it to be like ’you’re out, see you later’ but a lot of things were said and a lot of what I thought were pretty mean spirited things were said. I’m not going to betray that trust despite the fact that they did that.”

Helwani försvara beslutet att släppa nyheten om att Brock Lesnar gör comeback med att det är hans jobb att låta allmänheten få veta dessa saker.