Earlier this week, former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos criticized his UFC Adelaide opponent Tai Tuivasa for self-identifying as a “street fighter.”
“In his last fight, with [Andrei] Arlovski, when Bruce Buffer was introducing him, he said he represents street fighting,” a fired-up dos Santos told Sporting News, “I was watching the fight last night, and saw that and was like ‘what?! That’s not even a martial art’
I thought I was fighting against a martial artist, but that’s not the case. I want to know more about this, and one day I’ll ask him.
To represent street fighting…that’s just stupid. Who fights in the streets? It’s not even fair. That’s a coward. Street fighting is not a martial art, it doesn’t exist. How can someone represent street fighting? That’s bullsh*t.”
Everyone, all the gyms around the world, are fighting against that – against this kind of stupid thing, this coward thing. It doesn’t exist. You’re not a street fighter, you’re a coward. These people who fight in the streets don’t really know how to fight.
Come to a real gym, face a real fighter and you’ll get your ass kicked. And if this guy, Tai Tuivasa, is really a street fighter, that’s what he’s going to have…he’s going to have his ass kicked by me on December 2 in Adelaide.”
Well, now Tai Tuivasa has fired back—and he’s not pulling any punches.
“I was giving him credit for being a great, but he can go f**k himself now,” Tuivasa said in an interview with Sporting News. “Just because of what Bruce Buffer said? As if I’m gonna say I’m a black belt or something.
“Calling someone a coward is a bit shallow from a steroid injecting little muppet like that. He can say whatever he wants to say, as long he brings it. It’s all gonna happen anyway, regardless of what any of us says. But to be calling someone a coward is shallow coming from a cheater.”
“Make sure you’re not juiced up.”
Safe to say that Tai Tuivasa and Junior Dos Santos December 2 showdown in Adelaide has gotten amply more interesting.
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 10/26/2018.