Why this UFC referee will never officiate a Leon Edwards fight, Ryan Garcia reacts to Bhad Bhabie DV video: MMA News Roundup
Veteran UFC referee Marc Goddard has explained why he won't ever officiate a Leon Edwards fight. Meanwhile, Ryan Garcia has reacted to Bhad Bhabie leaking domestic violence videos.
Sportskeeda MMA's MMA News Roundup is your one-stop station for the day's top combat sports updates.
Marc Goddard won't ever officiate a Leon Edwards fight: Here's why
Veteran UFC referee Marc Goddard will never officiate a Leon Edwards fight, he recently revealed in an interview with OverDogs Podcast. He has good reasons for the decision as well.
Goddard happens to be Edwards' first MMA coach from the fighter's amateur days, and thus, for obvious reasons, he would prefer to keep any bias out of the octagon.
He said:
"You've never seen me referee Leon Edwards in the UFC, and you never will. Why? Because I was Leon Edwards' first coach [in] MMA way, way, way back when he was just an amateur... We'll just keep it out of the way. I just don't want any hassle. And I don't want to be put in a predicament where I'm making a call that could go against him."
Goddard also added that he "specifically requested" to not officiate Israel Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira 2 to avoid any awkward situation. He had refereed the first fight that 'The Last Stylebender' lost and he did not want any "negative connotations" to get inside the former champion's mind.
Watch Marc Goddard's comments below shared by Championship Rounds:
Ryan Garcia reacts to rapper Bhad Bhabie's domestic violence allegations
Amid the drug-fail controversy and a one-year suspension from boxing, Ryan Garcia has taken it upon himself to avenge rap sensation Bhad Bhabie.
Real name Danielle Peskowitz Bregoli, the musician shared disturbing footage of herself getting assaulted allegedly by her ex-partner and father of her child, Le Vaughn. She also shared pictures of her bruised face. She deleted all the posts soon afterward.
Garcia reacted to the matter on X. He wrote:
"I’m banned from boxing but not beating his a**."
[Viewer's discretion advised]
He continued:
"I got you Danielle, just let me catch that guy outside."
How a phone call from Dana White nixed a UFC-HBO deal
In a recent interview with FOX News, Dana White revealed that UFC had a deal signed and sealed back in 2007 to broadcast events. But things soured when the company tried to interfere with production.
White said:
"We did a deal with HBO where we were gonna put fights on HBO. HBO came in and started going, 'We’re gonna have to turn this music down, this is gonna have to -' No... You guys are not running our production and telling us what to do."
White made an emergency phone call to Lorenzo Fertitta, then UFC owner, and eventually, the deal was nixed.
"We had already signed a deal. We were done! So I literally called Lorenzo [Fertitta] and said 'We can’t do this deal.' He’s like 'What do you mean we can’t do this deal, the deal is done.' 'We gotta get out of this deal.' And Ari [Emanuel] got us out of the HBO deal... I believe if we had let HBO do what they wanted to do, it would have hurt us and hurt our brand. It would have made it stale and old and like boxing was."
This wasn't the only UFC deal that went south because of White.
The UFC CEO shared a story in the interview about getting into a big fight with CBS-owned Showtime executives which led to a $1 billion offer falling apart.