UFC Welterweight contender Matt Brown is being accused of assaulting his now former coach, Rodrigo Botti, according to recent police reports.
Botti, Brown’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach, were allegedly involved in an argument that ended up turning violent. According to the police reports filed from the incident, Botti was named the victim of a February 3rd simple assault that took place at the Ohio Combat Club in Columbus, Ohio, which both men co-own together.
Brown himself was not named in the police report, however a spokesperson for the Hillard Division of the Police are under an active investigation regarding the matter.
On Feb. 11, Botti posted a Facebook entry which gave his version of the incident. Botti claimed that an “unnamed UFC fighter” assaulted him “with multiple punches in the head” while he was seated in a chair behind a desk. The strikes allegedly opened “16 internal stitches” in his left eye, requiring him to undergo surgery on February 10th.
Botti also claims that Brown and the only other witness, Brown’s longtime Muay Thai coach, told the authorities that Brown was acting out of self-defense in the matter, and that Botti himself threw the first punch.
“The truth is we were having an argument and he started to yell,” Botti posted to Facebook. “[He said], ‘If you keep talking I can’t fucking talk’ and repeated that a few times before he went crazy and flipped the glass table of the desk to the floor and came after me with multiple punches on my head while I was seating [sic] in the chair.
“I stood up leaning my back against the wall and all I did was cover my eye with one arm and yell, ‘my eye you son of b*tch don’t touch my eye,’ while he was throwing punches in my head.”
Botti continued, “His muay Thai coach and only witness didn’t stop him, he slowly walked behind him and said, ‘ok, enough,’ so he basically stopped because he wanted to. Then the muay Thai coach was in between me and him and I said, ‘you are a piece of shit coward because you know I can’t fight back,’ and I said, ‘If I could we would fight til someone die here, I don’t punch not because I don’t have balls but because I can go blind forever,’ and as soon as I said that he pushed his friend out of his way and came after me again with another set of multiple punches in the head while I was just covering again.”
“There is no ‘my side of the story’ there is just what happened, and what happened I posted here on my page already because I am worried about my students to know only,” Botti said.
Matt Brown is currently scheduled to return to the Octagon to face former UFC Welterweight Champion Johny Hendricks at UFC 185 on March 14th in Dallas, Texas.
Talk about this on our official FACEBOOK page, or on our official TWITTER page. You can also talk about it in our popular FORUMS.
