Cortney Casey Reacts To Accusations She ‘Forged’ Injury Against Claudia Gadelha
Aside from Ryan Bader’s dominant victory over Antonio Nogueira at this past Saturday’s (November 19, 2016) UFC Sao Paulo event, one of the biggest stories of the night was Claudia Gadelha’s controversial illegal head-kick to Cortney Casey.
When the replay of the kick was shown in the arena, however, the Brazilian crowd showered Casey with boo’s as it seemed that the kick never even hit her, but rather grazed her hair. Referee Fernando Portello did not take away a point, or issue Gadelha a warning, but Casey did seem to be suffering from some damage.
Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission COO Cristiano Sampaio released a statement regarding the illegal kick, stating that he believes Casey “forged” her injury and called her actions “wrong and unsportsmanlike.” During a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Casey shared her side of the actions that transpired inside the Octagon:
“I wasn’t thinking any of that,” she said. “In my head, I’m thinking this is a ‘no-contest.’ I’m not going to go out like that. That’s not me at all. As I’m reading all these things saying I was trying to get out of a fight, I was like, I was never in a fight to begin with. This wasn’t a fight. I came out completely unscathed, no problem other than the bump on my head [from the kick]. It wasn’t a fight. It was me getting taken down, me pressuring her, her shooting on me, her laying on me, doing nothing.
“I could fight tomorrow if they needed me to. Yeah, I lost 30-27 on the scorecards. But it wasn’t a fight. I wasn’t getting beaten up like [Antonio Rogerio] Nogueira. There was no need for me to try and get an out. And I wanted an out, then why would I tell the doctor I was fine to continue? That wasn’t going through my head at all.”
Casey compares the attack on her character similar to that of former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, calling the ridicule she has been facing as of late ‘pathetic’:
“Never in a million years did I think that I’d go into Brazil and get as ridiculed as I did for something where I did nothing wrong,” she said.
“I can only imagine what Ronda [Rousey] goes through — like, the ridicule she goes through on a daily basis. It’s pretty pathetic. People that don’t even follow me going on my page just to say some shit, going out of their way. And I’m not even complaining. I’m not petitioning.”
After she took the illegal kick, Casey claimed that she was dazed and was trying to regain herself as the fight was already in the third round at the time. The only recollection she has of the incident was the doctor telling her that she could continue competing:
“Literally as soon as I stepped out of the cage, it was argument,” she said. “I really didn’t know what was going on when it happened. I knew I got hit in the head, and I was dazed a little bit. I was just trying to regain my composure because I knew it was the third round, and that’s kind of when we were implementing the game plan, drawing her into a brawl and trying to get her a little bit gassed. And then I got kicked in the head.
“The only thing I remember ever being said to me was the doctor coming in and saying, ‘you can continue,’ and I just said, ‘yes, I can continue.’ I heard my cornerman telling me, ‘take your five, take your five,’ and that was it.”
After the contest Casey says that Gadelha apologized to her for the kick, however, she continued to hear criticisms from the kick when she returned backstage:
“She apologized right away, like when we started the round again she apologized. After the fight, she came up to me, before they announced that she was the winner, she apologized to me,” she said.
“I went into the back, and normally the doctor’s pop over to check you out. Literally my gloves got cut off, the hand wraps got cut off, and the lady said, ‘here you’ve got 30 days if there’s any problem, sign here,’ and she left. That was it. Then I hear outside, as I’m waiting for my paperwork from the UFC to sign that, my check and stuff, I hear Robert and Tiago [Okamura] yelling back and forth in Portuguese to someone. And as I was leaving, they said, ‘she faked it, she faked it.’ The bump on my head was pretty big at that point. So I walked away, and the UFC interviewer was like, what happened?”
As for some thinking the kick landed on her hair, Casey doesn’t understand why everyone is getting so frustrated with her as she isn’t calling for any repercussions for the incident:
“The whole bun thing, it hit your hair, it hit this, it hit that — it’s my word against the media, against everyone,” she said. “I can only do so much.
“At the end of the day, I got kicked. I’m not asking for a point deduction, I was never saying that the fight should be overturned, none of that. So I don’t know why everyone is yelling at me, and blaming me, like I’m going out saying all this stuff. I haven’t said anything, other than I got kicked in the head.
“For people to question my character after all that, and then after them knowing that no one else wanted to take this fight against Gadelha, for them to tell me I was trying to get an out? It sucks.”
Did you see the controversial kick that has sparked so much controversy this week? Do you believe Casey exaggerated the kick?
