Rothwell Calls Miocic vs. Arlovski Pairing “Absurd”
Surging heavyweight contender “Big” Ben Rothwell was set for the biggest fight of his career, as he was scheduled to meet the highly ranked Stipe Miocic in the co-main event of this Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 76. Unfortunately for Rothwell, the Croatian suffered an injury, and both men ended up being scrapped from the card.
However, it was recently announced that Miocic will now be meeting No. 4-ranked former champion Andrei Arlovski at January’s UFC 195. “Big” Ben was left out to dry, and it’s safe to say that he’s not too happy with it.
After Miocic was forced from the bout this weekend, Rothwell began rallying for a fight with Arlovski, and according to “Big” Ben, Miocic fighting “The Pitbull” is simply absurd:
“It’s hard to be excited, I’m disheartened.” Rothwell told MMAJunkie. “I’ve been rallying for a fight with Andrei while in Ireland, for a whole week. I felt a lot of good vibes, a lot of traction. UFC on FOX posted about my calls for Andrei, The Underground was on it, Twitter was blowing up. I just felt people wanted to see the fight. Two weeks ago, Stipe pulled out of the fight. Here I am in Ireland, I’m here to fight and ready to go. Somehow, the guy that’s injured, that I was supposed to fight now gets to fight the guy I’ve been asking for. It makes no sense whatsoever. I’m not going to talk about what’s fair because there is nothing fair in this sport, so let’s get past that. I just, fair or not, I’m just completely blindsided. I mean if Andrei got matched up with somebody else, fine, whatever. But to get matched up with the guy I’m supposed to fight that’s not here to fight; the fight is Saturday and this is all getting announced, the fight hasn’t happened. It’s absurd.”
Apparently the UFC has justified the booking as making sense from a rankings standpoint, but we all know that rankings mean very little in today’s fight game. That being said, Rothwell will only be pleased if he somehow finds himself stepping in to meet Junior Dos Santos or Alistair Overeem in December, but he doesn’t see either man pulling out:
“I said, ‘Why is his guy (Stipe) getting rewarded?’ And they’re like, ‘It’s not a reward, he’s ranked third, Andrei’s ranked fourth. We’re just putting it together because of rankings.’ It doesn’t make sense. I mean Overeem is ranked behind me and he’s fighting the No. 1 contender in Junior Dos Santos. I mean, we are all in the top 10, let us fight each other. I’m the guy that’s been calling out Andrei, isn’t that worth anything? They’ve been telling us for years that fighters need to call out guys. I’ve been calling out the top dudes for the last year now and not one of the fights I’ve been asking for has been (made). So, I don’t get it it, it’s obvious frustration. You just try to hold on to, ‘Man, is something going to happen?’ I just don’t see it now. The only thing that I can see is that by literally an act of God, or Overeem gets hurt and I get to fight Junior. Cool, then all of this makes sense, I’ll be happy and I get the fight that I want. I don’t think it’s going to happen, Overeem is professional and he shows up to his fights.”
What should be next for Rothwell?
