Cortney Casey came out on the losing end to Claudia Gadelha at UFC Fight Night 100, but midway through the third round, Casey was apparently nailed with an illegal kick by Gadelha. Recently, the CABMMA issued a statement saying that Casey had forged her injuries and the kick never actually landed at all.
Casey disputes the claims, and spoke out about the incident in a recent interview.
“Then I heard noises (after the kick landed), and I was trying to blink my eyes and try to get the lights to go away, and I stood up,” Casey told MMA Junkie. “I don’t need to watch them (replays), I was there – I got kicked in the head. At the end of the day, that’s what happened. It hit right on my hairline. Her shin hit me square on the hairline. It’s literally like I have a dot on the top of my forehead. Even if I did take a picture, they’re going to be like, ‘Oh, that’s from one of the punches.' But I shook it off and finished the round.”
Casey even says that Gadelha apologized to her multiple times after throwing the kick, but she still wants everybody to look at it from all sides.
“I’m just there to do my job, to put on a show for all the fans, and that’s all I want to do,” she said. “I don’t want people to look at me any differently. I don’t want my character to be judged. I just want to people to look at it from both sides. I know what happened. She knows what happened. If she didn’t kick me in the head, she wouldn’t have stopped and put her hands right on me and said she was sorry. She wouldn’t have started the round saying she was sorry. She wouldn’t have after the fight said she was sorry, and then in the green room say she was sorry for kicking me in the head. Then when big brother and all the cool guys are there, she’s going to say she didn’t kick me in the head or thought it didn’t land? She knows she landed it.”
Whether the kick landed or not, Casey isn’t making any excuses for losing the fight, a unanimous decision.
“I don’t make excuses for anything,” she said. “That’s what hurts the most, people thinking I was looking for a way out. I don’t understand why people are getting mad at me.”
The UFC has yet to issue any statement on the matter.
