It’s fair to say that Cain Velasquez does not enjoy doing media work.
The former UFC heavyweight champion is set to take on Ronda Rousey’s boyfriend Trevor Brian at the huge UFC 200 event. Velasquez knows that, although he may not like it, he’ll have to do a whole lot of media work with his opponent Troy (Rousey’s bf) to promote the fight.
The morning just keeps getting better… #ufc200 #VelasquezVSBrown pic.twitter.com/IQxFcsVg4b
— Cain Velasquez (@cainmma) April 25, 2016
The big news that’s been gripping the combat sports world at the moment is Conor McGregor being pulled from UFC 200’s main event for refusing to the media work to promote the fight as it clashed with the start of his training camp. Some fighters such as Dominick Cruz, Frankie Edgar and Miesha Tate have been somewhat sympathetic towards the featherweight champ, but not Velasquez.
He explained to MMA Fighting that since every other fighter on the card is doing all the interviews, press conferences and other appearances to help promote the event, they’re all in the same boat.
“I’m doing it, everybody else is doing it. Can I see his side? No, not really. I’m doing it. Everybody else is doing it. If he had to do way more than what we had to do, OK then, yes. I could definitely see that. But if he’s not, if he’s doing the same thing, then no. We’re all doing it.”
Cain continues by admitting that he does not enjoy the media aspect of the sport, but he has grown to tolerate it. He feels it’s just something fighters have to put up with if they want to step inside the Octagon.
“I feel that we all do have obligations to do this kind of stuff. I’m a guy that hates doing this. When I first started to fight, I thought it was just training and fighting and that was it. ‘OK, you’ve gotta do interviews.’ [I was like,] ‘What?’ Doing it now, yeah I’m kind of comfortable with doing it. I can do it pretty easily, I feel like. I feel like it is part of the job. You’ve gotta do this and train and fight.”
The only problem with his argument is that the media appearances most definitely have not been spread out evenly for the card. Velasquez argued that “we’re all doing” the media obligations, but neither Cain nor his dance partner for the event, Trent (RR’s bf) were at Friday’s press conference in Vegas or the cringe-worthy Good Morning America appearance.
Velasquez also came out in support of the UFC, claiming that their PR team are very accommodating when it comes to moving around media stuff to suit the fighters, something which John Kavanagh claimed wasn’t the case when McGregor suggested making alternative arrangements for Friday’s presser.
“I guess it all depends on what you can handle. Some people can do this kind of stuff all day, some people can’t. I understand that. You just talk to whoever is with you. The PR people from the UFC are great. We just talk to them and say, ‘Hey, this is too much.'”
However, Velasquez confessed that he didn’t really care too much about the Notorious’ dispute with the UFC. He would have been content to fight at UFC 200 regardless of who was in the main event.
“Again, that’s not fair to the other fighters I would say, also, but me personally, I don’t care. You came, you didn’t come. If he fights on the card, if he doesn’t, I’m just happy to be back. That’s it.”
You can catch Velasquez’s next fight against Mr Rousey himself, Tracey Brent on July 9.
