- Ariel Helwani discussed how the UFC decided to let go of him after reporting Brock Lesnar’s return
- The journalist is not closing his door for a possible reconciliation with the UFC
Renowned MMA journalist Ariel Helwani divulged how he ended up parting ways with the UFC after reporting Brock Lesnar’s return at UFC 200 in 2016. However, he wouldn’t hesitate to put the feud behind him if Dana White insists.
What really happened
Speaking to an interview with Bo Nickal, Helwani detailed how things began to get rocky between him and the UFC. According to the podcast host, Lorenzo Fertita had always been irked by his work.
Helwani revealed that the final straw was when he reported that Lesnar was making his UFC return for UFC 200 against Mark Hunt.
“It started to fizzle out… it wasn’t actually because of Dana White, it was more because of Lorenzo Fertita because I was working for Fox while doing my show, ‘The MMA Hour,’ and Fox was a broadcast partner of the UFC and Lorenzo didn’t like that when I would go on The MMA hour, I would talk about things like you know Bellator or revenue sharing or fighter contracts ,all things that I consider to be you know just a part of sports talk radio that you hear in the NFL and NBA but they were very much like you’re either with us or against us,” Helwani shared.
“It was March of 2016 and the next morning I got a call from my boss at Fox saying we have to let you go and I asked why and they said the UFC was upset and they don’t want you on Fox anymore. And that was devastating and so when that happened, I was very hurt I’ve never done anything bad or illegal or unethical or got a story wrong and I didn’t feel like it was fair, if I’m being honest. And so, I went on a rampage from March to June of that year, I tried to break every single story under the sun like I was a man possessed and I did a pretty good job of it and in that process, I was doing such a good job that the UFC was convinced that I had a mole in the company that was feeding me information. Swear to God, I had no mole. I just had contacts, I had managers, I had fighters, I had coaches that were very kind to me and understood that I was just trying to do journalism,” he continued.
“It all came to a head when I reported that Brock Lesnar was coming back. The UFC were very unhappy about this. They thought that I had ruined the surprise, that I got the information from some weird way. It was not that. It was a couple of people [who] told me, I looked into it and I did sports journalism… That’s when they banned me in 2016, UFC 199.”
The UFC made Ariel’s life very uncomfortable
Helwani also shared how he pondered about trying to return to being part of the UFC once again. Ultimately, he wound up realizing that he didn’t want the UFC to make him feel “very uncomfortable” again.
“This is the truth when I left I said to myself, I don’t want to go back because… I felt very very uncomfortable towards the end. They made my life very difficult… So, when I left I said I’m going to focus on building my show, my relationships, the interviews and I don’t want to leave my family to feel uncomfortable, so that’s that,” he said.
Ariel has no problems reconciling with the UFC
As it stands, Helwani is not holding any grudge against any of the UFC brass, specifically White. Admittedly, Helwani is willing to “bury the hatchet” if the UFC president will reach out to him one day.
“Despite all the differences and there’s much more that happened, if Dana White called me up now and said, ‘Come to Vegas and let’s bury the hatchet’, I would have many reasons to say, ‘F you, I’m not interested’, but I would say, ‘Yes’. I would be on a plane. I’m not looking to do that, to get interviews or scoops or access. I just believe you live life once and I don’t want any hate in my heart. I don’t want any animosity. I think life is too short for that,” Helwani confided.
Despite his past conflict with the promotion, Helwani has remained active in covering the biggest stories in combat sports. Since leaving the UFC, he has become arguably the most decorated and reliable MMA journalist in the sport.
Watch Helwani’s full interview below:
