Outside Source
Stirling earned his Ultimate Fighting Championship contract with a knockout win on Contender Series in 2024. He was sharing the locker room with Quemuel Ottoni, who was set to face Kody Steele. Ottoni eventually didn’t make the walk to the Octagon and Stirling has now detailed what happened behind the scenes.
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Navajo Stirling recalls Quemuel Ottoni’s dramatic Dana White’s Contender Series fight-week incident
Stirling (10-0) recently revealed that Ottoni (12-4) was aggressive towards Steele, and even other fighters, throughout fight week until the weigh-ins. However, the Brazilian’s nerves got the better of him right before stepping out for his bout and he allegedly started crying backstage, even ripping off his hand wraps multiple times.
Cutman Brad Tate, who was in charge of wrapping Ottoni, refused to repeat it after a point. The bout was eventually called off and Steele won his contract in a later Contender Series outing.
“The guy that was on Contenders [Series] was probably the worst one,” Stirling told Full Send MMA. “He was fighting Kody Steele. He choked out Alex Pereira back in the day. I was in the locker room with him… At the weigh-ins, he is puffing his chest, he is even looking at me, like, ‘You wanna go?’ I’m like, ‘Bro, save it for tomorrow.’ He’s staunching Kody Steele out at the weigh-ins. And I was thinking, ‘This is going to be a banger.’ We get to the fight night and he just started crying. He took his gloves off three or four times. They had to re-wrap his hands. I think he had cutman Tate. The cutman said, ‘F*ck this guy, I’m not wrapping his hands anymore.’”
Both Tate and Steele have confirmed Stirling’s story about Ottoni, who had choked out UFC superstar Pereira in the latter’s professional MMA debut in 2015. Ottoni and Pereira’s careers have taken contrasting trajectories since. While Pereira went on to become a two-division champion, Ottoni is yet to make it out of the regional scene. He has fought only once since the Contender Series fiasco, suffering a first-round technical knockout loss.
Meanwhile, the undefeated Stirling already has five UFC wins to his name. The Kiwi is now scheduled to face Jan Blachowicz (29-11) on less than three weeks’ notice at UFC Belgrade in Serbia on Aug. 1.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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