10 Things You Need To Know About Brock Lesnar's UFC 200 Return
6. Breaking The News May Have Cost MMA's Most Respected Journalist His Job
Ariel Helwani, MMA reporter, banned for life after scooping Brock Lesnar's UFC return https://t.co/8Kwn992tgM pic.twitter.com/9GduLqCfam
— CBC News (@CBCNews) June 6, 2016
Ariel Helwani is, at this point, the most notable, respected journalist covering the sport of mixed martial arts. If he thinks a story has wings, it probably does. He's so respectable that the UFC itself has worked Helwani into their programming, for a time featuring him as host of UFC Tonight (until he proved to have too much of a spine), and going as far as to feature some of his commentary regarding fighters during PPV broadcasts, including UFC 199.
If you're not familiar with him, he was the reporter present when Lesnar and The Undertaker had their staredown at UFC 121.
However, after running with the Lesnar story, Helwani, along with several colleagues from MMAFighting.com, were escorted out of the arena at UFC 199. He wasn't even allowed to stay and watch Michael Bisping surprise us all in finally capturing UFC gold.
Ouch. All for doing his job.
As much as Brock Lesnar's return is big news, the promotion immediately went and did something absolutely stupid by not only removing Helwani from the event, but (at least until cooler heads prevail) banning him for life from all UFC functions.
Imagine the NFL doing the same to a journalist from ESPN leaking a big trade. You can't. As much as the UFC aims to be a major sports league, it's still run by some very petty people.