I am not really a fan of Twitter but it does serve its purpose in that we get to see how childish and unprofessional celebrities of all sorts can be when their public relations team doesn't get involved in their interactions. That is likely the only thing I like about Twitter - I have never commented on the platform but I do have an account.
When Aljamain Sterling won the belt at UFC 259 because of Petr Yan performing a clearly illegal and intentional knee to a downed opponent, other fighters were coming out of the woodwork to voice their opinion in real time. The more "professional" sounding comments are actually displayed on screen during the live broadcast but the real fun comments get screened out.
Look, there is no denying that this knee is illegal and Yan, honestly should know better... for serious; but if you were watching the fight you realize that Sterling's reaction to the entire situation was also pretty embarrassing to watch as he was clearly milking this contact for all it was worth.
One of my favorite Twitter reactions came at the hands of one of my all time favorite loud-mouthed fighters, Nate Diaz, who took a break from McGregor bashing in order to simply say three words
Fire That Man
Now I think that most people could make the assumption that he was referring to Petr Yan, who was the only person who committed a real foul in the octagon during the fight but there were others, including me , that were a little disgusted by the way that Sterling reacted to getting a knee to the head.
Dillashaw has been on a 2-year doping ban from the sport and has had to face a lot of deserved criticism for being a cheater. I can totally relate to his comments about Sterling deserving a "Best Actor" award for the way he was rolling around on the floor and doing what appeared to be faking not being able to stand up after the illegal knee took place.
Make no mistake here folks, I am NOT saying that the fight should have continued but from where I was sitting at the time it really looked like Sterling could have, but is not at all required to (or perhaps even allowed to) continue the fight. Yan deserved his DQ, there is no denying that, but the way he was rolling around on the ground reminded me of one of the main reasons why I do not like soccer.
Some people were a little bit more brutal in their Tweets, going so far as to show off their photoshop skills in the process
I'm gonna toot my own horn here for a second and reveal that while I was in college I did a couple of amateur cage fights. I won my first one, ironically, by catching my opponent with a knee to the head as he went in for a takedown. I wanted to claim that this was intentional but honestly it was just a literal "knee jerk" reaction to protect my mid-section / nuts and my raised knee hit dude square in the center of his face. This was not illegal because he was not a downed opponent. So I won my very first fight by KO. Let's just say that it filled me with pride and arrogance that would later haunt me. I was feeling as though I was top dog in this very very minor division that had questionable legality to begin with. I lost my 2nd fight by decision and lost my 3rd fight, very badly, by being badly concussed by a far superior opponent.
The thing about this memory of mine is that according to my corner, I continued to fight for another minute or so before being properly KO'd. I have ZERO recollection of that minute. The next thing I remember I am in the hospital (which by the way I had to pay for with my own money - it would be my last fight)
The point here is that when you are concussed, you don't have full conversations with the referee, let alone a full, completely coherent post-fight interview with Joe Rogan.
Yet this is precisely what Sterling did and just a few minutes after the fight was called off and he was declared the new champion.
It is impossible to say whether Sterling was faking or not - it certainly looked like he was. However, the right thing for Sterling to do in this situation was to be "real" and stop sprawling around on the ground and stumbling to stand back up only to immediately "find his legs" once the fight was officially called off. To me, and most of the MMA world, this looked very very fake. Had he tried to continue, the officials are obligated by the rules to stop the fight regardless of whether or not Sterling feels as though he can continue.
Sterling now finds himself in a tough spot because he is getting very little in the way of respect as far as his belt is concerned.
Now, to wrap things up I am going to poke fun at the official UFC website and how whoever is in charge of the maintenance of that page needs to be reprimanded or fired just like Petr Yan.
Well, at least they got part of it right.