Kenny Florian has claimed the UFC began removing him from broadcasting roles after he turned down a coaching role on The Ultimate Fighter.

Following his retirement from active competition, former title challenger Kenny Florian became an even bigger part of the UFC family. He was regularly featured on a series of broadcasts by the promotion, usually in a commentary position. However, a few years ago, he slowly began to drop off the radar – prompting questions from the fanbase.

Florian, who is now with PFL, has explained what he believes went down during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour.

“My understanding — and this is what’s been told to me from people inside the company — I guess I said no to being a coach… I was asked to coach on, I think, The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America, one of the early ones back in the day,” Florian said. “I wasn’t able to do it. It was travel and all of that stuff, and I was doing UFC Tonight, I was doing commentary work, and I just had a lot of stuff going on at home, so I just wasn’t able to really do it.

“It just didn’t make sense, and because I said no, I kind of slowly started being removed from stuff. That’s my understanding. That’s what’s been told to me — not directly, but by people within the company who are close to the source. But I guess that’s how it went down. So I stopped doing that, and last year I started doing stuff for the PFL, which has been awesome. It’s been great to call fights, be in that energy, and be right up close to the cage again and that’s been a lot of fun.”

Quotes via MMA Fighting

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