Rising UFC featherweight fighter Cody Stamann has taken issue with the UFC commentators, following last week’s UFC 216 event.
Stamann was placed against another top prospect in Tom Duquesnoy, and despite both men’s dominant and impressive fight records, Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier opted to focus on Tom, not Cody.
However, it was Cody who got his hand raised at the end of the fight, making all that bias for Duquesnoy unsubstantiated.
Now, after proving Rogan and D.C. wrong, Stamann tells MMAfighting.com that he wants a public apology.
Check it out:
“As soon as it came out, I watched it. I had my phone hooked up to my Bluetooth, I was with a few people and I was listening to the commentary, and now by the end of the first round I was frustrated enough to want to throw my phone through a wall after what they were saying. They were talking about Duquesnoy, where he trains, and I’m taking him down, hitting him with combinations and they’re not saying anything about that. I felt like Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan owe me a little bit of an apology.
“I felt like they were way more biased than they normally would be and I’m really not one to complain about that kind of stuff, but I was like, holy cow. I’ve had probably a hundred different people tell me that exact same thing, they were really loving Tom Duquesnoy for those first two rounds but in the third round they didn’t say his name again. So I guess I’m happy that I won them over, but at the same time that’s not their job to be that biased.
“I think when you go in there and beat a guy that everyone is talking about being the next bantamweight champion, I definitely think a lot of people opened their eyes up to me as an athlete on Saturday nightHis coach Greg Jackson was saying before the fight that Duquesnoy has all the capabilities of being a world champion. All these different media analysts were saying this guy’s the next thing, like, ‘Watch out Cody Garbrandt, this guy he’s coming for everybody.’
“He’s got a humongous following, he’s got the whole country of France following him basically. He had every single thing that the UFC would want in a guy coming into the UFC. All the hype, everybody thought he was the man, so when I had the opportunity to fight him I was all over that. I knew that was my opportunity to steal that shine.
“My whole thing leading into the UFC, I felt like I was going to be there years ago, I was getting pretty frustrated that I wasn’t. It was probably around the middle of 2016 that I basically told myself that I’m literally going to fight every two or three months every single opportunity that I can and I’m going to keep beating up tough guys until I get that phone call from the UFC.
“I was honored to be a part of an event and an organization that stands behind their community the way the UFC did. It was a beautiful thing to see. We actually all got ‘Vegas Strong’ on our shorts, Vegas Strong on our shirts. All my cornermen agreed to give up their Vegas Strong shirts, we’re going to sign them, maybe even frame them, we’re basically going to auction off all my gear I got for this past fight and we’re going to donate all the money to the Vegas relief fund.”
