Dan Henderson delivered Popeyes Chicken to Daniel Cormier as a joke with the knowledge that Cormier is in the midst of cutting weigh but is fond of the fast food restaurant. However, the seemingly innocuous rib may be seen as a prospective PR gain for opponents of MMA in New York.
If you missed it, in the UFC’s new “Embedded” series Cormier was delivered the tasty treat by Henderson. Cormier is in weight cut mode and Popeyes would be a definite weight gainer. Cormier told the story of eating Popeye’s for comfort after learning that his fight earlier this year with Rashad Evans was off. As we know, the UFC found a replacement for Evans and Cormier returned to a diet without Popeye’s before he destroyed Patrick Cummins. It a bit of gamesmanship Henderson personally delivered the chicken to Cormier. It did not appear form the video that Cormier was personally offended by Henderson’s delivery.
Bloody Elbow points out the potential PR faux pas by the UFC. Cormier is African American and Henderson is Caucasian (UPDATED: Hendo is part Native American). Most of us knew this. The stereotype that African Americans like Chicken is unintentionally perpetrated here. BE indicates that this will likely be picked up by the Culinary Workers Union 226, the prime organization behind the efforts to block the efforts to legalize MMA in New York, as ammunition to persuade legislators to vote against MMA. The belief is that it would use this episode as painting the sport as racist.
Payout Perspective:
An underlying issue in this whole Popeyes Chicken delivery is that KFC has been sponsoring TUF this season. Certainly, KFC can’t be happy its competitor is getting more publicity than the actual UFC sponsor. As for the PR issue, certainly BE has made a case for this joke to be a credible PR problem. While we know the context of how the joke was made, put in a snippet to someone already weary of MMA and a bias is born (i.e., MMA is racist).
UPDATE: 05/23/14 A reader pointed out that Hendo is part Native American. Still, the issue that someone giving Cormier chicken perpetuates some stereotype is the issue. I think its hard to utilize this since Cormier has admitted to liking Popeyes and the joke was taken without much offense by Cormier.
Did you seriously just write this? I’m looking for the punch line. I understand wanting to be a credible news source; being hypersensitive to attempt to achieve that is freshman journalism. If anything the attention should be drawn to MMAPayout and BloodyElbow for attempting to create news to the detriment of the sport.
Its a free country… Somewhat. He can write whatever he wants.
Pollo Loco > KFC
Of COURSE this is going to be used by the unions/Dems/Left in their ever-righteous crusade to continue dividing Americans in their multi-billion grievance industry.
And speaking of Bloody Elbow, though I really enjoy their content, the site’s moderators disgust me to no end. I was banned on two different occasions for injecting some politics into a couple discussions. Well, what’s the problem — it’s completely their prerogative and I should abstain from injecting politics into a sports discussion, right? Well yes … except for the fact that EVERY other comment in their forums also happen to inject hardcore politics into the discussion, but they just happen to be in concert with the BE moderators’ backwards political ideology. Talk about pathetically hypocritical and cowardly http://bit.ly/1jMJkIu; http://bit.ly/1jFtoGu.
I think the story behind the event makes it not racist. If there was a random black guy that never spoke of pop eye got chicken delivered to him that would be racist. But DC is a long time vocal admirer of the brand so its fitting that he gets pranked with pop eye.
There’s no issue. Only idiot liberals would think there was.
Cormier love Popeye’s chicken. He’s from cajun country.
His last fight he talked about how much missed eating Popeye’s chicken during training camp and Popeye’s sent over a huge bucket of chicken after he won.
There literally is no issue here.
Cormier is a southern black dude from cajun country who loves cajun style fried chicken — which is what Popeye’s makes. Everybody knows that. Hendo knows that, so he teased him with his favorite food.
The Sharptons and Obamas of the world might try to make an issue of this, but there’s no issue. Hendo teased Cormier with his favorite food during a weight cut. That’s it.
This website attracts a lot of angry nut cases…