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Muhammad Mokaev and Jake Haldey are fighting at UFC 286, but they aren’t fighting each other, as they have separate opponents for the event.
The fighters have been dueling on social media for quite a while now and Mokaev claims that when he confronted Hadley at the fighter hotel, Hadley’s dad stepped up to back up his son.
“I actually just came face-to-face with him. He didn’t say one word and his dad started backing him up,” Mokaev revealed during UFC 286 media day (transcript via Damon Martin of MMA Fighting). “I don’t understand. If my father was in front of me and I’m a UFC fighter, I wouldn’t stand behind my dad. I would jump over and slap the guy. He didn’t say any word. I don’t know, these guys don’t see me in real life. I know these kinds of guys. I grew up in England. Twitter is different than life.”
Mokaev is fighting Jafel Filho at UFC 286, while Hadley is fighting Malcolm Gordon at the event.
Hadley says that the way Mokaev was acting in the hotel is what led to the incident between them earlier this week.
“The kid’s just an idiot,” Hadley said at the UFC 286 media day (transcript via Matt Erickson & Abbey Subhan of MMA Junkie). “I mean, he’s coming over to me trying to fight me in the hotel – but you don’t want to fight me in the cage. He’s fighting a debut guy. He was like, ah, I won’t fight you because you lost us against Allan (Nascimento) and all this. But then he wants to fight me in the hotel. Like, what is this guy doing? He’s a total idiot. If there’s such a problem with me, then why don’t you just fight me in a cagefight? We can’t be fighting here. People are going to break it up. People are are going to get in trouble. What’s are going to happen if I sock him in his face when he comes and closes the distance? I’ve already had staff complain about me before, so they’re going to be complaining, ‘Oh, you knocked Mokaev out’ in the back and they’re all going to moan at me.
“I’m the one who’s painted as the bad guy all the while, but yet he’s coming over to me. He’s like, ‘Bro, relax – back up, bro.’ … If there’s so much of a problem, then either fight me or turn up at my gym or something – because he’s in Birmingham all the while, anyway – and I’ll f8cking bang you out there, no problem about it. But why are you trying to fight me in the hotel? It makes no sense. Then these fights are going to be off, then my fight’s going to be off and it’s going to be we’ve trained all this time for nothing. (He’s a) dumb kid.”
