Ariel Helwani is probably not the best person to put on blast. Usually cool headed Helwani swapped the high road and chose to respond to inaccurate statements about himself once again.
This time the insults and the expletives came from Dana White and Paddy Pimblett. Pimblett called Helwani a “rat” in an interview with White on Pimblett’s ‘Chattin Pony’ podcast.
According to Pimblett, Helwani is a “biased content creator” who doesn’t compensate mixed martial artists for the interviews while making a substantial profit from them.
Paddy Pimblett also claimed that Ariel Helwani had disparaged him and his manager, Graham Boylan. In a similar manner, Dana White called Helwani “the biggest fu***ng piece of s**t of all time.” The UFC president also criticized Helwani for allegedly possessing a huge ego among other things.
Helwani was prohibited from going to UFC events in 2016 for leaking information about Brock Lesnar’s UFC 200 comeback. The Helwani-White rivalry is still going strong today as a consequence of the Lesnar debacle and their prior disagreements.
Helwani made mention of his ongoing spat with White on the most recent episode of The MMA Hour. Helwani has since clarified that he would call them out for spreading “blatant lies.”
Helwani stressed that he never lost his job at organizations like FOX or ESPN. Additionally, he said that he has often operated on a fixed-pay contract and doesn’t get any additional compensation for doing interviews.
Helwani said:
“They don’t have to deal in the currency that is the truth. They could come out and say whatever they want. They can make up s**t all day long, and they don’t have to answer for it. I do; I have to deal in the truth.”
Nevertheless, Helwani then said that he would now provide his side of the incident in light of Pimblett criticizing him on social media.
He described how Pimblett’s manager Graham Boylan and subsequently Pimblett had mentioned that they would want Helwani to compensate him for an interview in November 2021. On his programme, Helwani showed text conversations and made note that when he declined to pay Pimblett, he and Boylan reacted hostilely.
Nevertheless, Helwani offered Paddy Pimblett a chance for making peace at the MMA Hour show and wished him luck in his next match. On December 10 at UFC 282, Paddy will compete in a lightweight bout against Jared Gordon.