At UFC 83, Kalib Starnes ran away from Nate Quarry so much that the fans went from cheering him to booing him over the course of 15 minutes, and this week he has become the laughingstock of mixed martial arts (video includes Starnes swearing):
Now Starnes, whose contract with UFC has been terminated, is trying his best to recover from the PR disaster of the way he fought -- or refused to fight. He first gave a brief interview to Mike Chiappetta of NBC Sports in which he sounded defiant and called criticism of him "outrageous," but he later backed down and released a statement that began with this:
Now Starnes, whose contract with UFC has been terminated, is trying his best to recover from the PR disaster of the way he fought -- or refused to fight. He first gave a brief interview to Mike Chiappetta of NBC Sports in which he sounded defiant and called criticism of him "outrageous," but he later backed down and released a statement that began with this:
"I would like to begin by saying that I was very happy to fight in Montreal, and that I trained really hard for my fight. I know that there were many people, including myself, who were disappointed with my performance, and I would like to apologize to my coaches, trainers and the fans for what happened. It was by far the worst fight of my career."Starnes is right to apologize, but then he goes on to criticize the "extremely biased articles and commentary" about him. The truth is, the articles and commentary aren't Starnes' problem. The people who watched the fight know what they saw, and what they saw was ugly.
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