The MMA GOAT conversation may be unresolved, but there is no doubt who the GOAT MMA journalist is- Ariel Helwani. After all, the Canadian journalist has been covering the sport since 2006, having created his website to do so because not many big outlets were covering the sport back then.

However, the journo famously had a falling out with Dana White and Co. in 2016 owing to his premature reporting of Brock Lesnar’s return before it was made official by the UFC itself. This resulted in him not getting credentials for future UFC events. But it seems there was more than met the eye to that story, as Helwani himself revealed on UFC middleweight Bo Nickal‘s YouTube podcast recently.

“One time Rory McDonald was on my show and Rory McDonald didn’t like the contract that they [the UFC] had offered him as an extension. And he said that he was going to fight out his contract and fight ‘Wonderboy’ in June of that year, it was March of 2016. And the next morning I got a call from my boss at FOX saying ‘We have to let you go’. And I asked why and they said the UFC was upset and they don’t want you on FOX anymore,” Helwani said.

This is perfectly in character for the famously prickly Dana White and UFC, who always like to control the narrative. Needless to say, Helwani was devastated at being fired from FOX Sports. “I was very hurt,” Helwani continued. “I’ve never done anything bad or illegal or unethical or got a story wrong, and I didn’t feel like it was fair if I’m being honest.”

So hurt was Helwani, in fact, that he “went on a rampage from March to June of that year.” In other words, the Canadian “tried to break every single story under the sun like I was a man possessed” during that time to get back at FOX and the UFC and prove his journalistic brilliance.

In fact, the former FOX journo was doing such a good job that “the UFC was convinced that I had a mole in the company that was feeding me information.” In other words, Helwani had some shady sources in the promotion, which is the literal job of every journalist worth their salt in any field- not just sports.

“I just had contacts, I had managers, I had fighters, I had coaches that were very kind to me. And [they] understood that I was just trying to do journalism, that I wasn’t malicious, I wasn’t trying to unearth dirty secrets about them, I was just doing sports journalism,” Helwani clarified. While all of that was happening on the back burner, a dramatic event brought Dana White and Helwani’s feud to a boil.

Ariel Helwani sets record on UFC ban straight for ‘stupid’ fans

“It all came to a head when I reported that Brock Lesnar was coming back. They were very unhappy about this they thought that I ruined a surprise, that I got the information in some weird way… So that’s when they banned me in 2016,” Helwani told Nickal.

For context, the UFC was going to announce at UFC 199 that Brock Lesnar, who hadn’t fought in the promotion for five years at that point, was returning to the UFC for the UFC 200 anniversary mega-card. But Helwani, courtesy of his sources in the promotion, was able to break the story hours before the official announcement, infuriating the UFC.

So much so that the UFC kicked out Helwani out of UFC 199, and banned him. For how long? “As long as I’m here,” White had reportedly said of the ban. Thankfully, the ban was overturned soon after, which not most fans are aware of. Most think Helwani is still banned from UFC events since he doesn’t attend events anymore. But that’s simply not true.

“A lot of these new fans think that I’ve been banned since UFC 199… They’re too stupid to realize that the ban lasted 48 hours. I was back the next event I went to UFC 200 and I was there at 201 and 202 and 203 and 204 and 205. I was at every single event up until UFC 248,” Helwani said. So why did the journo stop attending UFC events after that?

Well, first it was the COVID-19 pandemic, and then he signed a deal with ESPN, which prevented him from attending events. But why does Helwani not go to UFC events now? Well, he didn’t go into details, but he did hint that it was because of some shady things the UFC was doing.

“I felt very very uncomfortable towards the end. They made my life very difficult… So when I left I said’ I’m going to focus on building my show, my relationships, the interviews and I don’t want to leave my family to feel uncomfortable and so that that,” Helwani concluded. What do you think about Ariel Helwani’s revelations about being banned by Dana White and the UFC?