The UFC is awash in racial discord, and one can look no further than the man at the top as to why it isn’t chin-checked.
Disgraceful. DC giggling and then trying to get as far away from the remark as possible looks pretty bad too. Address it head on @dc_mma. You know what happened was wrong. pic.twitter.com/i3dQ43rDNg
— Spock Lesnar (@OctagonPost) November 20, 2021
Pun intended.
UFC flyweight Cody Durden recently defeated Qileng Aori via a three-round decision, but it was his actions after that disgraced the Octagon.
Imagine also being a Cody Durden fan. pic.twitter.com/cvpBGHlFyx
— DerrickTheAllAmericanLewis (@DerrickWrestles) November 24, 2021
Brazenly Racist
After his win at UFC Vegas 43, during his in-cage interview with UFC commentator Daniel Cormier, he said he had to send his opponent “back to China where he came from.”
Forgot to delete these champ! pic.twitter.com/RxuIgG8m0D
— Patient Francis (@CalebCowan8) November 24, 2021
The comment was so egregious that Cormier cut short the interview to spare himself the affiliation. However, Durden doubled down on the statement declaring to the fans during the post-fight press conference, “if they don’t like it, do something.”
Additionally, the internet unearthed screenshots of Durden’s old tweets showing his penchant for using racial slurs.
Part Of A Larger System
However, Durden is not alone; he is symptomatic of the culture in the UFC.
During the weigh-ins for a recent Dana White Contender Series club-style fight, Israeli fighter Oron Kahlon called his Afghani opponent Javid Basharat a “terrorist.”
Closing out the dominate performance with a 3️⃣rd round submission 💪
[ @JavidBasharat | #DWCS | Tune in LIVE on @ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/TMixrdYZN5
— UFC (@ufc) October 27, 2021
The incident sparked yet another uproar online; however, when UFC president Dana White was asked what he would do to rectify the situation, his answer was extremely telling.
“Are we gonna do anything? It got done tonight,” White said at the post-fight press conference.
Rough Justice?
Basharat took Kahlon out, avenging the terrorist comment with in-cage fury taking him out via third-round submission. However, the rough justice of a fighter has nothing to do with enforcing the tenets of the UFC Fighter Code of Conduct.
However, White confirmed that he would not be sanctioning Kahlon or any offending fighters.
“It’s the beautiful thing about this sport. I say it all the time; this is not a nice sport. This is a very rough sport. We say a lot of mean things to each other, and justice gets served at the end of the day.
“Listen, when you have a situation like that, the best way to solve the problem is you fight. You fight legally and you get paid to do it. And that’s what happened tonight.”
A Pattern Of Intolerable Tolerance
There were no UFC repercussions when Conor McGregor called his arch-nemesis Khabib Nurmagomedov’s wife a towel for wearing a burka.
Nothing was done when “Chaos” Colby Covington told UFC welterweight champion Kamaru “The Nigerian Nightmare,” Usman to send “smoke signals to his tribe.”
However, White explained that his view on the UFC is that there must be a liberal stance on definite Code of Conduct violations like race-baiting trash talk.
“No,” said White said when asked if there is a line that fighters can’t cross. “Not in this business, I don’t. You can add that to the pile of some pretty nasty things that have been said in this sport. And not just this sport. Boxing, I’m sure, Muay Thai, kickboxing, you name it. Mean things are said.
“In this insanely politically correct world we’re living in, this is one place that it’s not.”
Mean things or racially biased things? There is a definite difference.
Interesting for a sport that has fought hard for legitimacy. UFC is owned by the celebrity clients of the Endeavor agency and is broadcast on a network owned by Disney; the real question is, what do they think?
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