Kudos to Kevin Iole.
The longtime combat sports journalist spoke to UFC President Dana White following the second episode of Season 8 of the Contender Series to ask about one of the more controversial issues in the MMA space.
The UFC’s production team has removed every mention and acknowledgment of Francis Ngannou’s existence in the promotion.
When Cameroonian fighter Tafon Nchukwi competed in the Contender Series and the UFC, he was referred to as the first fighter from the African nation in UFC history, ignoring Ngannou’s presence before him. Things seemed to go to another level when Ngannou’s name was scrubbed from Israel Adesanya’s pre-event comments ahead of UFC 305 for the Countdown edit.
AFeldman captured the edit compared to the unedited version of Adesanya’s comments.
Iole asked White about scrubbing Ngannou’s name, and the former said he knew nothing about it. He promised to have someone from his team contact Iole to explain how Ngannou’s name was removed.
White was a man of his word, reaching out to Iole with a complete statement on the matter, and apologizing to Adesanya for any disrespect.
“My production team are a bunch of rock stars and they are truly f****** awesome,” White said via KevinIole.com. “I make it so hard on them sometimes with some of the crazy s*** I say and it’s tough. When you asked me about that, I didn’t know anything about it. But someone was editing that and made a conscious decision, thinking that was the right thing to do, that that’s what we would have wanted, what I would have wanted. I didn’t know about it and that was nothing that ever came across my desk. I’m in charge of everything production-related, so at the end of the day, the fact that it happened falls on me 100 percent. It’s my responsibility and I accept it. Blame me for that. I put them in such a tough spot sometimes saying all this crazy s***, it’s hard for them. Whoever was editing it, they thought that was the right decision and did what they thought I wanted. That’s not what I wanted and had I known that, I would have not authorized that. But that’s on me. Totally on me. I already called Israel Adesanya and apologized for it.”
Adesanya was especially offended because he is close to Ngannou and Kamaru Usman, who refer to the trio as The Three Kings. All three men are of African heritage, and each rose to become undisputed UFC champions in their weight classes.
The omission of Ngannou’s name also seemed to extend to the broadcast teams on UFC events. Over the past year, there have been multiple instances when it would have been natural to mention Ngannou’s name.
Sometimes, it has sounded as though Ngannou’s name has been intentionally avoided. It’ll be interesting to see how mentions of Ngannou’s name will be handled moving forward.
Ateba Abega Gautier. a dynamic Cameroonian fighter is set to compete on Contender Series on Sept. 17 vs. Yura Naito.
In any case, Iole masterfully handled the situation, and White offered a quick response as promised. The entire sequence offered an unexpected feel-good moment in the sport.
Ngannou is set to make his PFL debut on October 19 against Renan Ferreira.
