Fixed Fights and Jedi Mind Tricks: The UFC 246 After Action Conspiracy Theory Report

The near industry wide blackout in reporting the truth about the fixed fight allegations following the main event at UFC 246 between Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone borders on a coverup of epic proportions throughout the mainstream mixed martial arts media ranks. The preponderance of evidence available through open source material readily accessible to the general public suggests the outright denials from the sports elite media opinion makers exposes both the true depths of their combat sport knowledge and the limits of their professional ability to disseminate the truth to their listening audience. When journalists are reduced to hiding behind the Socratic Method, making semantic arguments in attempted Jedi mind tricks or even using Soviet like tactics on their own peers in the mixed martial arts media community some serious integrity issues arise that strikes at the credibility of the combat sports journalistic culture as a whole.

Former UFC middleweight title contender Chael Sonnen asks was, “Cowboy Cerrone paid to take a dive against Conor McGregor?” According to Bad Guy Inc., “There was a headline that came out on MMAWeekly, and it was that ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone was offered money by the UFC to take a dive against Conor McGregor. That’s a hard statement for me to even get out because of the level of ridiculousness,” said Sonnen. “Guys, that did not happen, period. We could stop right there, but if we did stop right there, we couldn’t have any fun so let’s talk about it for a couple of minutes.”

In stating the obvious, the official record indicates that Conor McGregor defeated “Cowboy” Cerrone by 40-second TKO during the main event of UFC 246 in Las Vegas, Nevada. So, it does not take a hero or a genius to develop an opinion and defend it based upon the official version of events. The problem arises with this particular version of the story when elements of the mixed martial arts media refuse to abandon the narrative, even in the slightest, in light of a mountain of information to suggest there is quite a bit more to the story than initially meets the eye.

In what has been one of the most bizarre instances of the mixed martial arts media refusing to face reality, the resulting fallout from Conor McGregor’s 40-second demolition of “Cowboy” Cerrone during the main event of UFC 246 has exposed the thresholds of knowledge and the limitations of the professional mixed martial arts media in laying out the obvious for their listening audience. Well before the January 18, 2020 UFC 246 main event showdown, rumors of Cerrone being paid to take a dive were circulating within the mixed martial arts community according to a December 23, 2019 BloodyElbow.com article titled, “UFC 246: Cowboy Cerrone shuts down rumors he’s being paid to take a dive against Conor McGregor.”

“Somewhere, somehow, Donald Cerrone heard a rumor that claims the only reason he scored the big-money fight against Conor McGregor is because he’s in cahoots with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to take a dive at UFC 246,” writes the author Adam Guillen Jr.

“There’s a bunch of shit going around,” Cerrone told MMAFighting.com. “People keep telling me, ‘I heard you were getting paid to take a dive,’” Cerrone said. “There wouldn’t be enough money in the world for someone to pay me to take a dive. I could never look myself in the mirror if someone paid me to take a dive. Shit … never happen,” said Cerrone.

Interestingly, according to a February 2, 2020 Sherdog.com article titled, “Business Grades: Who Got The Most Bang For The Buck At UFC 246,”author Patrick Auger writes that Donald Cerrone, “May have been finished in 40 seconds, but ‘Cowboy’ did well on the business side of things.” The report went on to state that, “The longtime UFC veteran only got a slight $25,000 base pay bump up to $200,000 to show and $200,000 win, but based on his comments leading up to the fight it certainly sounds like he has a side agreement with the promotion moving forward that is lucrative, which probably included PPV points for UFC 246.”

Continuing, “Even if that somehow is not the case, Cerrone says the he likes where his contract stands now. Any sort of pay bump in future fights for the performance he put on against McGregor is a win on the business side,” writes Sherdog.com’s Patrick Auger.

The comments from Cerrone seem to originate from the January 16, 2020 MMAWeekly.com YouTube video titled “Cowboy Cerrone admits Conor McGregor fight led to new, wealthier six-fight UFC contract.” Which is a clip where Cerrone, who when asked if fighting Conor McGregor is a “bigger money fight” than his other previous bouts, went on to explain that, “If you’re asking me if I re-did the contract, yes I did,” explained Cerrone.

“And uh, thanks Conor, I appreciate that. But moving forward, my next six fights, they’re all money fights. So, yeah, it’s not just this one. We did a contract where they’re, ‘Let’s do all of them.’ So, I’m stoked, happy. Happy to be here finally,” said Cerrone.

“Cowboy,” who was coming off back-to-back loses to Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje, is now riding a three-fight losing streak following his 40-second TKO routing at the hands of McGregor who looks to capitalize off the momentum sparked by the one sided beatdown of Cerrone to move on to bigger and better things within the UFC and Zuffa Boxing hierarchies.

In a January 20, 2020 Morning Kombat YouTube video titled, “McGregor beats Cerrone, is Khabib or Masvidal next? | Morning Kombat | Ep. 26,” co-host Brian Campbell hypothesized that, “In an era in UFC with great matching where you don’t make get well fights, this was a celebrity puffed-up get-well fight.” According to Campbell, “UFC’s goal with this fight was to revive Conor McGregor’s pay-per-view brand, and from that stand point, this was an absolute grand slam.”

“When you talk about the crossroads of where we’re at here, If Conor didn’t win this fight, if this was any kind of loss, it was disastrous,” explained Campbell. “He would then become the, ‘Hey, let’s fight Nate and let’s find an exit strategy. What he did in 40-seconds was completely remove that, that’s off the table,” said Campbell.

Going on to expound on the critical nature in which McGregor’s career depended on a win Saturday night at UFC 246 against “Cowboy” Cerrone, Campbell went on to explain that:

“You want to talk about from a marketing point of view, what this means for the rest of 2020, 40-seconds is 40-seconds. People are going to go, ‘Aw, man! I didn’t really learn what I came to learn. Oh, it was entertaining but I wanted more, I wanted two rounds. From a business perspective, that’s the best way that fight could have finished. Because those same questions we had coming in, is he all of these things, we now push that ahead to the next fight. And that level of intrigue will keep you coming back I think at a higher pace than had he spent two rounds in there decimated him. It’s almost like there’s still a little bit of that illusion left.”

In summarizing his numerous spot-on characterizations of the UFC 246 main event in closing, Campbell went on to describe the end result of McGregor’s 40-second drubbing of Cerrone as “genius for marketing” and explained that he was sure the UFC and Dana White weren’t doing anything else but bathing in dollars as a result of the fight.

In filling his role as the devil’s advocate for the Morning Kombat show, MMA analyst Luke Thomas went on to follow up on Campbell’s comments stating that, “I’m sure you’ve seen it, I posted a piece of hate mail I got, because I apparently refused to call it a fixed fight,” explained Thomas as he seemed to stammer for his words in terror for daring to touch the subject of a fixed fight at UFC 246 with a 10-foot pole.

“You see a lot of the fixed fight birds coming out here, I’m not suggesting that there is a number here or nothing, that anyone should be concerned, nor am I suggesting that there is any real merit to the position, I don’t think that there is, but that’s not the point,” said Thomas.

“The point being is Conor was so dominant inside that 40-second window, a small window but still, he was so dominant people, particularly his critics, maybe more than just his critics, his haters, the people who just can’t stand the guy; it brought them out into full force,” explained Thomas in attempting to rationalize this apparent meritless, but widespread speculation of a fixed fight at UFC 246.

For his part, Thomas isn’t alone in the MMA media community in denying the possibility of a fixed fight at UFC 246. According to the January 21, 2020 Sherdog.com Beatdown Podcast: UFC 246 Discussion, “TJ De Santis and Nick Albert returned to Between Rounds for another edition of ‘Beatdown.’ This week they discuss why Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone wasn’t a fixed fight.” In stating the obvious, when one is defending the official version of events, they are neither a hero or genius for standing by the official narrative. The interesting part to the story however is that even when a great deal of information is available to call into question the official version of events, some of those in the mixed martial arts media community have bent over backwards in an effort to avoid acknowledging all of the facts as they may stand in crafting their narratives.

“Well, lets talk about envelops and money and performing … or not performing because this is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard,” explained De Santis. “People are speculating that Donald Cerrone threw this fight and apparently there was a rumor like two or three weeks ago that Donald Cerrone was going to throw this fight and was going to get the payoff.”

According to De Santis, “Let me just tell you, first off, I don’t think there is enough money to get Donald Cerrone to lay down for anybody. Second, if you’re going to throw a fight, you don’t get shouldered and your nose broken like that. That’s not how you throw a fight, okay, unless Conor didn’t know the fight was being thrown, which again, Conor didn’t know the fight was being thrown because it wasn’t being thrown.”

“And finally, you can’t pay Donald Cerrone enough money to not beat Conor McGregor because whatever money he would get for beating Conor McGregor would far out weight whatever you were going giving him to lay down; there is going to be a rematch involved,” said De Santis. With TJ going on to mention that he didn’t believe “Cowboy” Cerrone could wake up in the morning and look himself in the mirror if he threw a fight, one could not help but wonder if De Santis wasn’t parroting back some of the exact same talking points “Cowboy” originally offered up to MMAFighting.com in explaining to his own listening audience at Sherdog.com why the UFC 246 main event wasn’t a fixed fight.

“The idea that there would be a fixed fight, I don’t think is out of the question of, of you know, being possible; I think that there are fixed fights,” De Santis explained. “I don’t think there are fixed fights in the UFC, I don’t think there are fixed fights at the highest levels, I don’t think there are fixed fights when there are things on the line worth fighting for,” proclaimed the Beatdown’s TJ De Santis.

Interestingly enough, I recently had the opportunity to interview former UFC fighter Leo “The Lion” Kuntz for BoxingInsider.com and during the interview we covered a number of topics including his UFC Fight Night 79 bout against Tae Hyun Bang, who according to a November 27, 2017 MMAFighting.com article titled, “Report: Ex-UFC Fighter Tae Hyung Bang gets jail time for involvement in fight-fixing scheme,” received a 10-month jail sentence for his role in a fight-fixing scheme at the highest levels of mixed martial arts that some in the mixed martial arts media community would simply rather you not know about.

According to the report, “Tae Hyun Bang was sentenced to 10 months by the Seoul Central District Court for taking $92,610 (100 million won in South Korea) to throw a fight against Leo Kuntz at UFC Fight Night 79 in Seoul in November 2015, according to the Korea Herald. Three people who gave the money to Bang also got jail terms.”

While its one thing to listen to amateurs naively discuss how fights may or may not be fixed, it’s another matter entirely to turn to the professionals in finding out just how many ways a fight can be fixed in the modern era of prize fighting. In my December 2018 article for BoxingInsider.com titled, “The Anatomy of the Fight Game,” I wrote about the 2016 documentary “Dirty Games – The Dark Side of Sports” where investigative journalist Benjamin Best interviewed former Leon Spinks manager Charles Farrell who explained how fights are fixed in combat sports.

“You fix fights to make betting money. You fix fights to get a fighter a championship. You fix fights to maneuver a fighter up the ranks toward a championship fight. You fix fights to win, in order, again, to position someone strategically. You fix fights to lose, in order to get paid and in order to make, you know, betting coups. The way you fix fights varies greatly,” explained Farrell.

“You fix fights by buying judges. That’s, you know, that’s one easy way to do it. You fix fights by having the referee working for you, so that, if there’s anyway that the ref can stop a fight in your guy’s favor, he does. You fix fights by colluding with the fighters, generally the loser. It’ almost always the loser. Winners almost never know the fight is fixed,” said Farrell.

De Santis, a longtime mixed martial arts radio personality from the Sherdog Radio Network, seems to be either dreadfully uninformed about the realities of fixed fights in prize fighting today or too afraid to truthfully explain to his listening audience the dirty little secret of the combat sports entertainment industry. At any rate, it appears his UFC 246 “Cowboy” Cerrone talking points, coupled with his wild beliefs that fights are not fixed at the highest levels of the sport today and his woefully naïve view of how fights are actually fixed in combat sports is in destitute need of revision.

Considering it seems apparent the genesis of the mainstream mixed martial arts media’s original UFC 246 fixed fight rumors stem from “Cowboy” Cerrone himself acknowledging what he heard through the grapevine, a topic numerous mixed martial art media outlets picked up and ran with prior to UFC 246, it’s interesting to take into account just how narrow the field then became following Conor McGregor’s dismantling of Cerrone in 40-seconds immediately following the event.

The silence was deafening throughout the mainstream MMA media outlets who instead elected to concentrate on ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith in reframing the focus of his UFC 246 post-fight analysis comments away from the fact he pointed out “Cowboy” Cerrone did not show up to UFC 246 main event against Conor McGregor. There were even semantic based arguments made over whether Stephen A. Smith said we didn’t learn anything in the McGregor vs. Cerrone fight or if he in fact said we didn’t learn a damn thing in the fight; anything but acknowledging Smith is to date the most influential MMA analyst to point out the lights were too bright for “Cowboy” Cerrone Saturday night.

Unfortunately, in UFC 246’s wake, numerous leading opinion makers in the mixed martial arts community have bent over backwards in order to deny reality itself in the face of a preponderance of evidence to suggest their own public words on this topic are so far off base as to suggest some serious credibility issues with their reporting. According to a November 5, 2009 NCBI abstract titled, “Political Abuse of Psychiatry – A Historical Overview,” by author Robert van Voren, “The use of psychiatry for political purposes has been a major subject of debate within the world psychiatric community during the second half of the 20th century. The issue became prominent in the 1970s and 1980s due to the systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, where approximately one-third of the political prisoners were locked up in psychiatric hospitals.”

Which is a fact that is not lost upon me when I see numerous MMA analysts attempt to deny ESPN Stephen A. Smith’s vision of reality itself while campaigning for his dismissal as an MMA analyst. Perhaps even more bizarrely is the fact these same MMA analysts curiously refuse to acknowledge a preponderance of evidence that suggests their own outright refusal to cover the controversy surrounding UFC 246 beyond blind denials is in serious need of revision. Considering there are those within the MMA community who have attempted to frame the conspiracy theories surrounding UFC 246 as psychological in nature, it’s interesting to contemplate this phenomenon within the mixed martial arts media in relation to the Soviet Union’s own intentions in abusing psychiatry for political purpose.

And perhaps the worst part of all, millions of MMA fans rely on these individuals to deliver the absolutely best MMA content possible while there is a near industry wide coverup in reporting anything but the UFC 246 main event wasn’t fixed. Its not a subject that is even entertained at one single mainstream mixed martial arts media outlet, which is all the proof that one needs that the content they deliver at the end of the day is subpar at best in light of not one single leading mixed martial arts opinion maker apparently having the knowledge or courage to call it like it is.

Moving ahead back to the future, according to a November 1, 2017 Forbes.com article titled, “Conor McGregor Made Around 100 Million for Floyd Mayweather Fight, Knows He Would Win Rematch,” author Trent Reinsmith writes that, “Originally he (Mayweather) said an MMA bout next. He was talking about an MMA fight next,” said McGregor. “That's what he said before the fight. So, what’s that about?”

Which is what this entire charade in the Conor McGregor sweepstakes is ultimately about, a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. or another member of boxings elite and a chance at another very lucrative payday for all parties involved. And as coincidence would have it, as originally published in a January 19, 2020 MMAMania.com article titled, “Floyd teases ‘Mayweather vs. McGregor 2’ after Conor’s big UFC 246 win,” author Ryan Harkness quotes UFC President Dana White as stating, ”Listen, we’re doing something with Floyd,” said White. “Tonight’s the night of the fight, we have the Khabib fight coming. There’s so much coming on. Floyd is in our plans and we are in Floyd’s plans and we’re going to do something later this year.”

With McGregor winless in the last three years prior to UFC 246, having fell to Nurmagomedov in late 2018 in a failed championship bid any hope of salvaging another mega payday against boxing royalty very much depended on a successful outcome against “Cowboy” Cerrone at UFC 246. Anything short of a convincing victory would have been “disastrous” and the 40-second drubbing of Cerrone could not have played out any better for McGregor or the UFC from a marketing point of view.

With McGregor back in the saddle again, a significant hurdle is cleared on the path to “Money” Mayweather riches once again. And one thing is for certain, with mixed martial arts experts like Chael Sonnen, Luke Thomas, Joe Rogan and TJ De Santis assuring us any talk of a fixed fight at UFC 246 is ridiculous, crazy and without merit; there is absolutely no reason for anyone else to suggest otherwise. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

When the limits of one’s professional ability prohibit them from delineating the truth to their listening audience when their job is to deliver the best and most accurate information possible, a serious conflict of interest arises striking at the heart of professional journalism itself. When mixed martial arts opinion makers are reduced to hiding behind the Socratic Method, outright denying the truths possibility or even attempting to use Jedi mind tricks and Soviet like tactics against their peers a picture starts to emerge of a near industry wide blackout in reporting the truth that borders on a coverup of epic porportions throughout the mainstream mixed martial arts media ranks.