Paul Craig is one of the few athletes from Scotland to ever be featured in the UFC. Since joining the organization in 2016, the 35-year-old has participated in several significant events in the United States and put on thrilling bouts.
But it’s not all fun and games. Recently Craig expressed his displeasure with the fact that he’s gotten an interpreter and or subtitled when featured on major UFC events. required to use an interpreter on certain occasions and have his speech subtitled.
Craig told Off The Ball,
“Our trash-talking is tremendous but the issue we have got is nobody can understand it. It’s a bit disrespectful when you’re still speaking English and it’s getting broadcast to the English-speaking world and they are subtitling it because they can’t understand it.”
“You do a post-fight interview. I’ve had an interpreter relaying what I’ve said. That’s disrespectful to all Scottish people.”
This is particularly interesting considering UFC isn’t out there subtitling Paddy Pimblett – who is far harder to understand with his native Scouser accent. But perhaps this is a pioneering thing. UFC fans have had a lot of time to adjust to the Scouser accent thanks to the presence of Darren Till who was infamously hilarious and even birthed one of the funniest memes in UFC when combined with Mackenzie Dern.
Dern is also worth mentioning because she was actually assigned an interpreter despite being born in US – due to her ever evolving accent. But unlike Craig, she rolled with it and didn’t seem to begrudge the interpreter one bit.
Craig is next booked to compete on the UFC 283 card in Rio de Janeiro, against Johnny Walker.
Walker just defeated Ion Cutelaba in the first round.
MMA math is currently working in Craig’s favor. He is the only one to have beat two light heavyweight title contenders at this time with victories over Magomed Ankalaev and Jamahal Hill.
Ankalaev just competed for the vacant title and somehow managed to land in a split draw on the judges scorecards. During the speech he was dismayed by what had transpired and even went so far as to say that he doesn’t know if he can even keep competing in the organization after this.
UFC brass was so irked by the contest and the speech that followed that they phoned Jamahal Hill and pulled him from a main event against Anthony Smith in March for a vacant title shot against Glover Teixeira in Brazil.