For quite a while now fighters whose agent is Ali Abdelaziz have been refusing to do interviews with Ariel Helwani. This extends to both the time when Helwani was at ESPN and now when he’s at VOX/ MMA Fighting banner.
There are notable exceptions to this rule – such as Kayla Harrison who opted to go on Helwani’s show saying that it was in the best interest of her career.
Meanwhile Nurmagomedov, Usman, Cejudo and many others refuse to. Just what did Helwani do, that was so egregious to cause an entire roster of champions and title contenders to ignore him?
Apparently what he did – is suggest Leon Edwards was more deserving of a title shot than Gilbert Burns (another one of Abdelaziz’s clients).
Helwani was quick to refute Durinho’s since deleted claims:
Ok. I’ll take the bait because you finally said my name. Obrigado.
Surely you’re excited because I gave you props today for offering to go up to 185 right?
Nevertheless, come on the show any time. We can hash it out once and for all. All the Dominance fighters are doing it Smiling face with smiling eyes
Helwani offered further context on why he prefered Edwards to Burns at the time:
 Also if we are worried about being factual, let’s be factual. They took him out of the rankings because they were forcing Khamzat on him. And then he said yes. And then he said yes again. And again. What about when he asked to fight you last year? What happened then?
And when you look at it Dominance MMA roster of clients is perhaps the closest MMA can come to Unionizing. Due to a number of champions being represented by Ali Abdelaziz they seem to have “some” bargaining power when it comes to the UFC. It’s interesting to see how much of an overreaction manifested when a duel was to materialize featuring one fighter represented by other management (Leon Edwards) and a Dominance MMA Champion (Kamaru Usman).
Regardless of what happens we’ll keep our eyes glued to the long pending podcast surrounding the sketchy origin story of Dominance MMA.