Ariel Helwani is a Canadian born combat sports journalist. In his two decades of experience he’s covered promotions like UFC, Bellator, Pride, and many more. His large popularity in the sport is due to his hard hitting questions, and professionalism he brings to every interview. He is without a doubt the face of combat sports journalism.

However, when watching a interview the other day that Ariel was doing with UFC fighter Sean Strickland, I was taken aback by one of their exchanges. Strickland decided he wanted to question Ariel Helwanis combat sports knowledge, as Ariel has in fact not trained much in the sport:

“I don’t know how you got this job bro, you should be a golf commentator, a golf analyst.”

Ariel questioned what Strickland meant by this and Strickland went further:

“How did you get in the MMA world? I don’t think you’re a big MMA fan.”

To ask someone this who single handily put combat sports journalism on the map is plain disrespectful. Ariel Helwani seemed to think so too and he fired back:

“I was in the bar watching MMA when you were in your fathers nutsack. When you didn’t even know what the f*ck MMA was dude, I was talking about MMA. I was doing a radio show at Syracuse university in 2001.”

Ariel didn’t stop there though:

“I was on the front f*cking lines of this sport, creating jobs, and interviewing fighters, going to bullsh*t events.”

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnlI6xHjvs8/?igshid=NDk5N2NlZjQ=

While Ariel Helwani may have just for a moment lost some of his well known professionalism I can’t blame him. For someone who is a staple in the sport to be questioned by a fighter that clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about is insane.

Ariel Helwani has been around a long time and it’s time that the combat sports community puts some respect on his name. Theirs a reason this journalist has 1.2 million followers on Instagram, and Strickland only has 50k.