MMA Icon Asks: Who Are These Shadow Figures Asking UFC Fighters to Take a Dive?
Chael Sonnen wants to know who is asking UFC fighters to take a dive.
Following yet another betting scandal in the Octagon, multiple athletes have come out of the woodwork, revealing that they have been offered large sums of money to fix fights. Among them is Vince Morales, who claims he was offered $70,000 to throw a fight.
Flyweight standout Vanessa Demopoulos also claimed that she was offered money to fix a fight, though “her integrity could never.”
With so many fighters being approached, Sonnen wants to know who exactly is trying to fix fights on MMA’s biggest stage.
“Vince Morales claims that he was offered $70,000 to fix a fight, and a number of fighters came out,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “I’m just offering Vince’s name as a jumping-off point. A couple of female fighters came out and said they were offered money to fix fights. Vince was most interesting to me because he had a specific number.
“A lot of the other fighters that came out with allegations that they were paid to take a dive, it was a little more of a broad stroke. And I would say whoever talked to Vince was serious. If they had the money worked out, there was probably even a number of other details.”
UFC CEO in contact with FBI regarding fight-fixing allegations
Three years after the James Krause scandal rocked the UFC, the promotion is once again dealing with gambling shenanigans after the promotion’s betting integrity firm, IC360, detected unusual line movement an hour before Isaac Dulgarian’s prelim clash against Yadier del Valle at UFC Vegas 110. Dulgarian was listed as a solid -250 favorite going into the day, but by the time he’d stepped inside the Octagon, those odds dropped to -150 after a series of bets came in favoring del Valle.
Dulgarian lost the fight via a first-round submission.
“[IC360] reached out to us and told us that there was some unusual action going on with that fight,” White told TMZ. “‘Do we know anything?’ We didn’t. So what we did was call the fighter and his lawyer and said, ‘What’s going on? There is some weird action going on with your [fight] — weird betting action going on with your fight. Are you injured? Do you owe anybody money? Has anybody approached you to, you know…’ And the kid said, ‘No, absolutely not. I’m gonna kill this guy.’ So we said, ‘OK’”
Despite clear signs that something wasn’t right, the UFC allowed the fight to move forward as scheduled.
“Literally the first thing we did was call the FBI,” White said about the moments after the fight. “So we called the FBI. I’ve met with the FBI twice today.”
Dulgarian was ultimately released from the promotion following the fight, and White issued a stern warning to anyone potentially involved in fixing fights.
“You know, seeing things out on the internet where fighters are coming out going, ‘Oh, I was approached.’ Really? Why didn’t you tell us that, or more importantly, tell law enforcement that you were approached?” White said. “They’re gonna be approached now by the FBI.”
