Manager: Fined and suspended mixed martial arts fighter ‘doesn’t feel remorse’ for homophobic tweet
The manager of a mixed martial arts fighter who was fined $20,000 and suspended for three months for a tweet in which he referred to a fellow fighter as a “fag”, has said he is not remorseful for the slur.
UFC fighter Nate Diaz, tweeted defending a fellow fighter who lost his bonus as a fine for smoking marijuana, in which he included the word “fag”.
Mike Kogan, manager of Diaz, appeared on the MMA Hour, and said that the fighter was not sorry for what he said, because despite using the slur, he said he did not mean to offend.
“Nate doesn’t feel remorse for what he said,” Kogan told host Ariel Helwani.”I don’t feel remorse for what he said. I don’t feel remorse for defending what he said or elaborating on what he said. Because it was not a homophobic statement. It was not intended to offend homosexuals. We weren’t even talking about homosexuals.
“One can debate the multiple uses of this term. We can sit here and debate in the English language, there’s a lot of words that mean a lot of different things, but whatever. As it is, it wasn’t intended to be used the way people tried to twist the way it was being used. So therefore, what does he have to feel bad about?”
He went on to argue that if Diaz apologised for the tweet, that would be an admission that he had intended to offend the gay community through the use of the word.
“If we would have made a homophobic statement, or a statement that was clearly intended to insult homosexuals, that’s one thing,” he said.
“You come out and say, ‘Hey, you know what, I’m really sorry it hurt people. We didn’t mean to do that.’ But to me, and this is just my philosophy, and I’m sure it’s going to be disagreed with by many people. This is how I think, and how Nate thinks. The mere fact that there is a protocol to deal with these crisis situation implies its lack of sincerity.”
The UFC’s parent company Zuffa, released a statement saying: ”The language used in his tweet was regrettable, offensive and inconsistent with the values and culture of the organization, and is not tolerable.”
Zuffa’s statement also went on to say that the money from Diaz’s fine will be donated to charity.
Another fighter Fallon Fox, last month was forced to come out as transgender, following the discovery of her 2006 gender reassignment surgery by reporters.
