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Mario Bautista broke his silence about being denied the customary octagon interview after his UFC 316 win over Patchy Mix. Bautista outworked Mix for three rounds, earning a comfortable unanimous decision victory with effective striking and cage control.
The win marked a significant moment, as Bautista spoiled the highly anticipated debut of the former Bellator champion. Despite this, he was not allowed to express his thoughts in the octagon interview.
Reflecting on the situation during a recent appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, Bautista said:
"A little bit [surprised]. Afterwards, I was thinking, 'Man, I did the exact opposite of what I did to Aldo. I held Aldo. I fought Patchy and I stood up with him the whole time and it still didn't seem good enough.' I don't know if it's a UFC thing. I don't know if it was a Trump time delay, whatever it was, it, it was a little bit weird. Now that I think of it, that's kind of like messed up."
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When asked if he got any answers from the UFC regarding the denial of the interview, Bautista replied:
"No. I wasn't going to push it. In my mind, I was like, I'm gonna go at the back and we'll do media there, I'll do media stuff here, but even if I wanted to cut a promo, they didn't even give me the chance to do that."
Check out Mario Bautista's comments below:
Mario Bautista speculates whether crowd reactions compelled the UFC to deny him the octagon interview
Mario Bautista's stalling fight plan, particularly against fan-favorite fighter and MMA legend Jose Aldo, at UFC 307, seems to have built a negative perception about him among the fans. As a result, his UFC 316 fight against Patchy Mix was also characterized by loud boos from the audience in attendance.
During the aforementioned appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, Bautista also noted that he was denied the octagon interview at UFC 292 when fans in Boston booed during his fight against Da'Mon Blacksheer.
He implied that the audience's reaction could be the reason why he was denied the octagon interview, stating:
"I noticed [the boos]. I noticed it in the fight, while I'm standing up with this guy the whole time, and they're booing. In my mind, I'm thinking, 'I can't make any of these people happy.' So, maybe they didn't want to hear the boos afterwards. This is second time they've done that to me, actually. They did that to me for the Damon Blacksheer fight in Boston, and that went all three rounds. And they didn't give me the interview for that."
Check out Mario Bautista's comments below (8:50):
