On a morning when we should all be celebrating Michael Bisping’s upsetting of odds, a sour taste is left in many mouths.
Ariel Helwani, probably the most recognisable MMA journalist on the planet, claims he was removed from Inglewood’s Forum venue between the co-main and main event.
The MMA Fighting reporter explained how he and two colleagues, Esther Lin and E. Casey Leydon, were escorted out of the arena and had their credentials taken away.
My long-time colleagues @ekc and @allelbows were also escorted out of the building w/ me. Sorry to report no post-fight coverage tonight.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 5, 2016
I love this sport & this job with all my heart. Did nothing unethical. I reported fight news. That's it. & then told we're banned for life.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 5, 2016
While nothing has been confirmed yet by the UFC, the decision is believed to have come after Helwani broke a story about Brock Lesnar’s return to the Octagon at UFC 200 next month.
Hours earlier, Helwani also reported that the much-publicised rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor was set to be confirmed for UFC 202 and, lo and behold, this tweet followed.
The rematch is coming! #UFC202: @NateDiaz209 vs @TheNotoriousMMA 2 8/20/16 https://t.co/1tv9SG2JQX
— UFC (@ufc) June 5, 2016
You’d be hard done by to find a more well-connected figure in the fight game than Helwani so his sources obviously leaked information to him, prior to the official UFC announcements, and he brought it to his outlet’s readers because, well, it’s kind of his job.
One can understand that an organisation would be upset at having an expensive revelation like the video detailing Lesnar’s return beaten to the public by a journalist in-the-know but can a reporter really be punished for reporting?
Apparently, yes.
UFC VP of public relations Dave Sholler, who was in attendance at the UFC 199 post-fight press conference in the absence of president Dana White, would not be drawn into commenting on the situation when probed.
And while much more is expected to come out in the wash in the coming days, the issue cannot be immediately brushed under the rug.
Helwani has been criticised in the past for being a mouthpiece for the UFC but, in all reality, he’s anything but.
The MMA Hour host is at odds with the promotion more often than many recognise and, to his credit, he has never been known as a figure who prioritises his relationship with the UFC over the act of reportage.
Dana White has not tried to make secret his hostility towards Helwani, as well as other media members, in the past and it might be fair to speculate that the Lesnar story was the straw that broke the temperamental camel’s back.
@arielhelwani you are full of shit and guilty of click baiting too.
— danawhite (@danawhite) December 29, 2015
The last few years have been transformative ones in the battle to legitimise mixed martial arts as a sport but surely the act of punishing members of the press for publishing presumably non-embargoed information is a dangerous, dangerous move and has the potential to undo all the hard work that’s been done to get MMA to where it is today?
Will the next reporter to publish a story that the UFC would preferred to have broken be banned from events? What if a negative word is uttered about a decision made by the promotion?
If this turns into a trend then we’ll have nothing more than a bunch of PR representatives on press row gushing about how amazing an organisation the UFC is, only letting information reach the public when given the thumbs up by Uncle Dana.
You may remember Helwani recently being relieved of his duties by Fox due to the increasing unrest stemming from his juggling of roles under Fox, UFC’s broadcast partner, and MMAFighting.com, a mixed martial arts news website.
And while that move appalled many, it was nowhere near as shocking as the one that reportedly took place in California on Saturday night.
It seems, more and more, that Helwani is being made a scapegoat just due to the fact that he’s good at his job.
That’s not to say that he’s the only media member to be banned from UFC events in the past – Jonathan Snowden, Loretta Hunt and Josh Gross come to mind – but Helwani is certainly the most high-profile so far.
If the UFC wants less information to be leaked to the public then cut it off at its source, find the chatty folk within their organisation and punish them for divulging exclusive material.
Journalists should not be penalised for having the ability to nurture relationships with sources, obtain information from them and be the first to bring that story to the public.
Helwani was simply doing his job and, apparently, that’s a stupid thing to do nowadays.
