Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) matchmaker Joe Silva has responded to claims made by Matt Mitrione.
Mitrione, who is now a Bellator heavyweight, once competed under the UFC banner. Back in Dec. 2012, he took on Roy Nelson. Mitrione lost the fight via first-round TKO.
Recently, the heavyweight claimed Silva lied to him about cage dimensions. He said he was told the cage would be 30×30, but instead it was 25×25.
MMAFighting.com reached out to Silva, who denied the claim:
“I would not lie about such a thing. There’s no reason to. I’ve never heard anyone use the excuse the cage was smaller as to why they lost.”
He went on to say that it’s possible that an error was made, but he didn’t lie about anything.
“It’s not impossible they made a mistake shipping the wrong Octagon. It’s not impossible they could have given me the wrong information. I don’t even remember this incident in the first place, there was so much going on. But in a situation like that I would get that information from the people who know and pass it on.”
