Dave O’Donnell talks about the alleged fake fight
The Fight Lounge managed to get a few words with Dave O’Donnell following last night’s fight between Alex Reid and Jason Barrett.
After all the pre-fight hype, last night’s main event at Ultimate Challenge: Warrior Creed didn’t last long, with Alex Reid submitting Jason Barrett in the first round with a triangle choke. Since the fight, the internet went wild with speculation that the fight was a “work”. The Fight Lounge contacted Dave regarding this.
“I’ve heard it all before, this isn’t the first time I have been accused of fixing fights.” O’Donnell told us, “I got it after Tom Watson was beaten by Daijiro Matsui. You just get different class of fighters and Barrett probably wasn’t in the same class as Alex.”
“Alex has fought some of the world’s toughest fighters and made it look easy. I watched the fight back myself this morning, just to see where people where coming from, and I don’t see it. It’s like the Jack Mason/Miguel Bernard fight. Miguel looked fantastic the other week, but Mason made him look like an amateur.”
“Other fights I’ve been accused of staging are Imanari and Robbie Olivier, Butterbean and James Thompson. People where saying ‘Oh, that punch wouldn’t have hurt and stuff’. Also Ken Shamrock against Buzz Berry. If all these fights where fixed, I must be the biggest fixer on the planet.”
“Sometimes fights don’t go as you would have thought. I watched Fedor Emelianenko versus Dan Henderson last week. Two of the most skilled fighters on the planet, but tell me, what skill was shown in that fight? It looked like a bar-room brawl.”
“So I’ve watched it back, and I couldn’t give a fuck. It was a real fight and I put on the shows I think people would like to see, or at least I hope they like to see.”
One of the many people who questioned the reality of the fight was Tom “Kong ” Watson, a former opponent of Reid’s and a fighter who was booked to appear on the card, but had to pull out due to injury.
“Tom is a good guy and is entitled to his own opinion, everyone is, and he spoke out on Twitter. Alex and Jason were a bit angry asking ‘why he’s saying these things?’ It is what it is.”
“Since last night I have had five fighters asking me if they can face Alex, so they can get in the spotlight.” Dave continued, “Some big names, some wanting to move down in weight, some move up in weight. You can’t take anything away from these two guys, both where injured before the fight. Alex put his shoulder out on Monday and Jason twisted his ankle, but neither man pulled out, they badly wanted to fight.”
“Reid stands for a lot of good in this sport and he is a big draw, his video of him kissing Barrett at the weigh-ins is getting a huge amount of views. People thought that was staged, it wasn’t. I wish, as a promoter, I could come up with something like that, but Reid did it off his own back, a spare of the moment thing.”
So there we have it, words from the straight talking promoter, but doubters will still most likely doubt.
By Mike Clarke
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