Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum has really landed himself in it.
When Fabricio Werdum squared up to interim lightweight contender Tony Ferguson at the UFC 216 media lunch, it looked awful. ‘El Cucuy’ had antagonised him with some comments about keeping his trap shut, but the sight of a giant aggressively confronting a much smaller man made the Brazillian look like a lowly bully.
Then the translations started flooding in and what started as Werdum having a bad day at the office transformed into a shitstorm. Several times during his argument with Ferguson, he used the word, ‘maricon,’ a Spanish homophobic slur that translates to ‘faggot’ in English.
Once it all snowballed out of control and the blinding spotlight was focused on the former champ, he ticked the box by apologising over social media. Just like all the worst apologies, this one started with an excuse.
Maricon is common word in the Spanish culture and I do not mean to offend anyone in the LBG community and if I did I'm apologetic #heeyy
— Fabricio Werdum (@FabricioWerdum) September 29, 2017
Werdum isn’t the first UFC fighter to drop the f-bomb. UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping received a lot of heat for using the slur after beating Luke Rockhold at UFC 199.
‘The Count’s apology was pretty much perfect. He outlined what he was thinking when he made the comment, explained how it was normalised in the culture he grew up in, but admitted that, as an adult, he knows not to use it and apologised profusely for any offence caused.
Bisping has a better command of English and therefore is able to explain himself better, but that’s not really the point. The British fighter isn’t known for using homophobic comments. Werdum, on the other hand, kind of is.
In one of Werdum’s more bizarre interviews with MMA Fighting, he accused former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos of being a closeted homosexual. The comments made no sense for plenty of reasons, namely because dos Santos is married to a woman who recently bore him a child.
“I think he didn’t come out of the closet yet. I don’t have anything against homosexuals, but ‘Cigano’ needs to get out of the closet. He must have something because he won’t forget me. I already told him I’m married. Nothing against gays, but everyone does their own thing.”
In 2013, Nate Diaz was suspended by the UFC for calling Bryan Carraway “the biggest fag in the world” in a tweet for accepting a retroactive performance bonus. We wonder if the promotion will do anything similar for Werdum.
