There is a reason why Ariel Helwani is so well respected in the field of MMA journalism.
Aside from being astonishingly accurate with his reporting and extremely courteous to anyone he encounters, he also won't back down when he feels he is in the right.
In Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, Helwani began to record an interview with UFC lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov, who recently blocked him on twitter despite the two having a good relationship in the past.
It turned out that the fighter from Dagestan believed Helwani knew that he was being used in the McGregor vs Alvarez contract discussions, but neglected to tell him and went on to celebrate the signing of the UFC 205 main event. Ariel denied this, and suggested that Khabib not handling his twitter account or phone number was the reason behind this, going as far as to pull out his phone and show him the unanswered texts.
The discussion was fascinating to watch.
Ariel is the man.
You can't imagine many journalists sticking up for themselves and even firing back in that position. And he even ended it amicably.
Fantastic stuff.
