Cody McKenzie had a night to forget both inside and outside of the cage at ‘UFC On FOX 9’ for all sorts of different reasons.
It all started moments into his fight with Sam Stout as it became apparent that, unbeknown to McKenzie, his sponsorless shorts actually still had the price tags attached, forcing the referee Herb Dean to reach down and snatch them off before they got in the way.
That’s undoubtedly a first in the UFC, and it soon emerged that McKenzie had actually showed up to the event without either shorts or a mouthpiece, resulting in a UFC employee having to dash out to a nearby sports store to get those Octagon essentials.
McKenzie spent the best part of 15 minutes in the fight getting battered from pillar to post by Stout, displaying plenty of heart and durability, but not much in the way of effective offense, leading to a unanimous decision loss.
At the post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White said he was “embarassed” by the shorts situation, describing it as “UFC Amateur Hour” and “one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen”, but at the same time he didn’t seem entirely surprised, simply calling McKenzie, “a strange dude.”
Backing up that description, Adam Hill of The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that McKenzie had drowned his sorrows by taking a couple of shots followed by a couple of beers, only to throw up on himself in the tunnel leading to the arena.
McKenzie, who was still bleeding from his fight, then tried to take a beer outside while he had a smoke (yep), but was prevented from doing so.
The 26 year-old didn’t call it a night there though. Later a fan posted a message on Twitter to White informing him that there was a brawl at one of the local hotels that involved girls getting hit, and that McKenzie was present.
Now it should be noted that at no time did the fan actually say that McKenzie was the one doing the hitting, only that he was there at the time.
Whether the eye-witness account is true or not, McKenzie understandably felt the need to come out publicly and strongly deny that he had ever hit a woman.
“I have never hit a women in my life and never will,” McKenzie wrote on Facebook. “That is one of the most Terriable (sic) things I have ever heard makes me sick just thinking about it. Whoever started that rumor is a messed up individual, only cowards hit women.”
The fighter is expected to give his side of the story on today’s edition of ‘The MMA Hour’ radio show.
McKenzie holds an overall 3-4 record in the UFC and with only one win in his last three fights his future in the promotion would now appear to be hanging in the balance.
