Mixed martial arts journalist Ariel Helwani has entered a bit of a beef with fellow reporter Ben Fowlkes following Hewlani’s recent heated comments from UFC women’s flyweight champion Nicco Montano.
It all started when Helwani reported that the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was allegedly growing irritated with Montano not signing a contract to fight Valentina Shevchenko.
“UFC is losing patience with Nicco Montaño. As I reported last week, the plan was for her to defend the 125 title against Valentina Shevchenko in Calgary but they are having a hard time getting a commitment from her. While it’s not scrapped, they are now looking at other options.”
UFC is losing patience with Nicco Montaño. As I reported last week, the plan was for her to defend the 125 title against Valentina Shevchenko in Calgary but they are having a hard time getting a commitment from her. While it’s not scrapped, they are now looking at other options.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) May 1, 2018
Montano would later take to social media to dispute the journalist’s claims.
“This just in…. @arielhelwani is a huge waste of space. Everyone and their grandma knows about my condition. I’m 5days post tonsillectomy and adenoid removal surgery due to a bacterial infection that’s been inhibiting my practice all year. Soonest I can get back on the mats is 16 more days. The UFC not only knows about this but flew me out to Vegas themselves to get this surgery done ASAP so I can jump on getting a fight with Schevchenko lined up.
“If you’ve been a fan of mine then you know my mind set… no girl is anything I’m not. Who’s scared to fight? It’s what I do, it’s literally why I’m the anomaly here, because I was ranked #14 on the show and came out #1. It’s apparently in douchbag’s best interest to throw my name out to the wolves in order to stay relevant.
“I literally haven’t spoken a word in 5 days due to my condition and Mr. Poor Excuse of a Man has not only brought it upon himself to be the leader of idiot fans who don’t know the difference between MMA and UFC but also has the balls the size of a baby rat to say I’m scared while key board warrior over here is more than likely to eat a fat man’s ass than get in the octagon with HIS 125lbs Champ… drop. …….. lesson of the day, don’t believe everything you read, idiots run their mouths. Ps, @arielhelwani you suck at your job, I heard MMA is looking for a better journalist who is actually knowledgeable”
Speaking on the latest edition of The MMA Hour, Helwani offered a few words on the matter.
“I spoke with my friend Ben Fowlkes yesterday, who wrote this great article with Danny Downes. It’s amazing, you have two guys who are talking about my journalistic practices and they are doing so without practicing good journalism themselves.
“They are assuming that my sources are from X camp. They are assuming this and that, but not even a single text message to see if what they are assuming is correct and it was incorrect. I was okay with telling him that.
“So if we are going to weigh-in on journalism, if we are going to weigh-in on doing things the right way, let’d do things the right way ourselves, which is what I said to him.”
Your questions/comments now!https://t.co/lLocQxXeOI
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) May 7, 2018
