Ariel Helwani Compares UFC Betting Scandal To Mark McGuire And Sammy Sosa In Baseball

MMA journalist Ariel Helwani compares the UFC betting scandal involving James Krause to the Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa era in baseball.

Ariel Helwani
Credit The MMA Hour on YouTube

MMA journalist Ariel Helwani is blown away by the severity of the gambling scandal surrounding former UFC fighter Jame Krause.

One of the biggest MMA stories over the past few weeks has been the ban on gambling within the UFC and in certain regions of Canada. A few weeks ago it was announced that UFC betting was being banned in Ontario, Canada following a questionable instance stemming from a UFC event. Prior to that, the UFC had announced its own rule that now prohibits fighters from betting on fights. The fight in question was the Nov. 5 bout between Darrick Minner vs. Shayilan Nuerdanbieke. Prior to the fight, the odds swung hugely in Nuerdanbieke’s favor and many bets were placed. He wound up winning the fight and after, it was revealed that Minner had an injury coming into the bout. The bout was placed under investigation and Minner’s coach James Krause was suspended.

The punishment continued as Krause is now suspended and no active fighters are to train with him if they want to compete in the UFC. Krause also had several betting podcasts and businesses that made money by selling bets that are now closed up. Many people were taken by surprise by all of these revelations including Ariel Helwani, arguably one of the biggest names in MMA media. 

Ariel Helwani wishes he had asked James Krause a few more questions before this news broke

Prior to any of this gambling news being known, Ariel Helwani had Krause on his The MMA Hour podcast. That was back in August and at the time Krause was very proud of his betting successes. He dropped names of some of his businesses for the fans to take part in and bragged about how well he has done making money off of betting alone. At the time none of this seem suspect but now in light of new information, Helwani wishes he could have done things a bit differently in that interview. 

“(Krause was) very confident in speaking about this, dare I say a tad smug as well. But maybe he was trying to sell his product, right? I’ll be honest, I have some regrets in that moment. The one question that I wish I asked, and I was a little bit taken aback. That’s why I kind of chuckled. I wish I asked, Did you ever bet against your guys, right? Because we know that people have openly talked about betting for and I’m certain he would have said no, but I wish I asked that question,” Helwani said in a recent recap video. “All this in retrospect reminds me a lot of the McGuire/Sosa scandal of the late 90s. Where in retrospect, everything looks worse and you wish that you, I’m assuming people who covered them back then, wished they asked questions. Once certain rules came into play, and once things became crystal clear, like of course, how do we miss that? How did we not ask questions about any of this stuff? Here’s a coach who’s around all these fighters who’s in locker rooms and all this stuff, giving out picks. It’s all a little bit weird.”

Krause has not been speaking to the media since all this news has come out. 

Published on December 7, 2022 at 3:15 pm
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