Not for the first time, and almost definitely not for the last time, a fighter is pissed off with Ariel Helwani.
One inevitability of being a journalist is the backlash. At some stage, someone you are reporting on will take issue with what you’ve written about them. This applies to any form of writing – an article, a tweet, an Instagram post. Stick and stones may break people’s bones, but thoughts and prose enrage them.
On Tuesday, famed MMA journalist Ariel Helwani sent out a couple of tweets that really pissed off Nicco Montano. The UFC women’s flyweight queen has yet to defend the belt she won in December 2017. The promotion’s supposed plan was to have Montano’s first title defence against Valentina Shevchenko headline UFC Calgary on July 28.
He reported that the UFC are exploring other options for the slot because they were finding it difficult to get Montano to commit to a date. He added that his several attempts to reach out to Montano were fruitless and that the situation was reminiscent of that of Germaine de Randamie and the UFC women’s featherweight throne. De Randamie was stripped of her title for refusing to fight Cyborg.
Firing back
What Helwani failed to mention in his tweets was that Montano has only just gone under the knife. One quick glance at her Instagram account and you’ll see that she’s actually recovering from surgery. Five days ago, she had her tonsils and adenoids removed.
Montano was made aware of Helwani’s tweets. To say that they upset her would be the understatement of the year. She fired back on Instagram with one hell of a response in which she called Helwani a ‘huge waste of space,’ and ‘Mr. Poor Excuse for a Man’. She added that he ‘sucked at his job’ and that he had ‘balls the size of a baby rat.’
Check out her reply in full below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiPadsjgyhE/?taken-by=nrmontano
