Sijara Eubanks is taking on Roxanne Modafferi at UFC 230, but was originally set to fight Valentina Shevchenko for the vacant women’s flyweight title on the same card.
The fighter was eventually removed from the bout and Shevchenko went back to fighting Joanna Jedzrejczyk for the gold at UFC 231, but the whole situation lead to Eubanks giving UFC President Dana White the business during a phone call.
“I hit up Ali and Ali didn’t answer at first,” said Eubanks on The MMA Hour. “So my heart dropped. I figured Ali kind of found out the same way I did. So when he didn’t pick up I knew it was bad news. Then I started blowing him up and he picked up said ‘I’m sorry.’ I was like ‘Let me speak to Dana White. I want to speak with Dana. Ali put Dana White on the phone.’ So I ended up speaking with Dana. Well, more like yelling at Dana. I have a pattern of yelling at Dana I guess. So I was just screaming at Dana. I let him know ‘not only are you taking this away from me but you’re taking this away in a f*cked up kind of way. I’m going to tell you and I’m going tell everybody that you all f*cked up. You passed up on what was going to be the biggest upset in women’s MMA history.’ I was going to put Valentina on her ass. I was going to show up and show out at Madison Square Garden. I was going to get my f*cking belt and I was going to shut everyone the f*ck up and have a blast. I was like ‘you all passed up on something f*cking major. You dropped the f*cking ball major. That’s your f*cking fault and you’ve got to fix it.’ He thought it was great. I was in a parking lot pacing and screaming with veins coming out of my forehead. At the end of it, he tried to say a few things but I kept barking. So at the end of it, he laughed and said ‘I love it and I love you. Let me see what I can do.’ From the little I’ve interacted with him and from what I now about him, I knew he’d like what I said and he was happy with the way I reacted. I think if I had just rolled over and taken it, I would have gotten f*cked over pretty bad. So I let him know I’m not that type. I’m not gong to take it like that…I think he liked what I said and he did right by me.”
Eubanks and Modafferi’s bout at UFC 230 is expected to give the winner the next shot at the UFC Women’s Flyweight Title, but nothing has been made official at this time.
UFC color commentator Joe Rogan also claimed that he didn’t know who Eubanks was when word got out that she was originally headlining UFC 230, a statement that Eubanks calls disrespectful.
“I tweeted him but he didn’t tweet back. Joe knows who I am, he knows who I was before I said it,” Eubanks said. “He didn’t have to say that on his blog. I thought it was disrespectful. Me and Joe, I am not happy with Joe Rogan. He can’t avoid interviewing me one day. One day he is going to find himself with me in the cage with the mic and I am going to let him know exactly how I feel.”
UFC 230 takes place on Saturday, November 3 from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York with Daniel Cormier and Derrick Lewis headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
