A knockout, a speech, a controversy: Yoel Romero's big win marred by 'misunderstanding'

Yoel Romero

If there’s one thing we can all agree on (and there may, in fact, not even be that), it’s that any time your post-fight speech overshadows your actual fight, things probably didn’t go according to plan.

That’s Yoel Romero’s story after his third-round TKO of Lyoto Machida in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 70 headliner Hollywood, Fla. It was a spectacular performance, if you can remind yourself to just focus on the action between the horns.

With the power and poise of a large, predatory cat, Romero (10-1 MMA, 6-0 UFC) stalked Machida (22-7 MMA, 14-7 UFC) in the first two rounds of the FOX Sports 1-televised bout, pinning him against the fence and pelting him with power shots. In the third, he took down the former UFC light heavyweight champion and elbowed him in the head until his body went limp.

Then it was game over, celebration time, Romero rocketing up the ranks right before our eyes. Oh, but wait. In his post-fight interview with UFC commentator Jon Anik, Romero made it clear that he had something he wanted to say. Perhaps it would have been better for him if he hadn’t:

“What happened to you, USA?” Romero began. “What happened to you? What’s going on?”

You know how sometimes fighters will do the thing where they pander to the home crowd, telling them how awesome their city and/or state is – or in co-headliner Lorenz Larkin’s case, how awesome their beaches are? This was already shaping up as the opposite of that, but OK. We could wait it out and see where this was going.

Then came the part at the end, over which there has already been much debate. After imploring us to “go for Jesus,” Romero followed with what sounded to some like “not for gay Jesus,” and to others like, “not forget Jesus.”

Seeing as how this fight took place just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court made a historic ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in the U.S., the distinction between the two phrases is pretty important.

Depending on how you heard it, Romero had either made a vague plea for Americans to remember Jesus Christ, or he’d done the modern day equivalent of getting on TV (or, in that case, more likely radio) the day after Brown v. Board of Education and criticizing the nation for allowing desegregated schools.

Especially considering the growing support for gay marriage among young Americans, as well as the youthful UFC audience that the UFC’s marketing experts are always reminding us about with fun phrases like “key demos,” this didn’t seem likely to be a popular view on Romero’s part.

And, predictably, it wasn’t. Social media lit up with fans, fighters and media who were none too pleased to hear Romero call for the country to “go back” after such a landmark civil rights ruling. From cageside, UFC commentator Kenny Florian tweeted an initial reaction suggesting that Romero had marred his own performance with the remarks. The crew on “FOX Sports Live” mentioned Romero’s “controversial” comments on gay marriage in their post-fight recap. The UFC on FOX YouTube page uploaded the video of the speech with a headline teasing those same controversial comments.

Yoel Romero

Except, hold on, according to Romero it was all a “misunderstanding.”

“I didn’t refer to anybody,” Romero, a native speaker of Spanish, said via translator at the post-fight press conference. “What I was trying to say, (was the) United States, thank you for giving me the American dream.”

Which, if that’s what he meant to say, great. It just seems weird that he’d begin his expression of heartfelt gratitude to the people of this nation by asking us, “What happened to you?”

For the discerning fan who wants to get to the truth of the matter, you’re left to choose between a limited set of options.

1. Romero said nothing at all about gay people. Instead, his accent and his admirable attempt to do the interview in a foreign language combined to cause an incredibly unfortunate misunderstanding.

2. Romero was absolutely talking about gay marriage, but somewhere between the cage and the press room, he was convinced that this was a bad PR move, at which point he backtracked with an elusiveness that would make Machida himself jealous.

3. Romero did, in fact, tell us not to “forget Jesus.” He also – and this part isn’t up for debate – asked us what had happened to us, suggesting that our country had recently made a wrong turn that could only be corrected by turning to Christianity.

The first one is the most generous interpretation, even if it doesn’t explain why the tone of his speech was far more critical than grateful. The second one is the least kind way to look at it, since it suggests that not only is Romero bigoted against gay people, he’s also willing to abandon his own sincere beliefs almost immediately upon meeting a little resistance.

The last one is the most complex, because it tells us just enough to know that Romero is upset at the direction of the U.S., but not enough to know what he’s upset about. That’s where it becomes a fill-in-the-blank situation onto which we project our own biases.

Personally, I’ve watched the post-fight interview at least five times now, and I hear “gay Jesus” every time. Maybe that’s because I think the phrase and the concept is too funny to ignore, especially after seeing Phil “CM Punk” Brooks’ response (via Twitter):

Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for parallel structure, which in this case only works if you follow “go for Jesus” with “not for gay Jesus.”

Or maybe it’s because, due to the timing of his remarks (seriously, one day after the Supreme Court ruling?!), and my own personal bias (because we all have them, so we might as well get them out in the open) about how intensely religious people sometimes tend to view gay rights issues, I listened to the interview the first time through fearing that Romero was talking about gay marriage even before he said it (or didn’t).

But if Romero says that wasn’t his intent – even says that he has no desire to criticize anybody but only to “be a better person to be able to love people” – I’m willing to take him at his word. Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t want to see him fined or punished in any way. If a fighter wants to use those precious few moments after a main event win to proselytize to fight fans, that’s his choice. He gets that freedom, just like we get the freedom to voice an opinion about how he exercises that freedom.

It’s just that, if you’re looking for a way to make sure people aren’t talking about your actual athletic performance the morning after you knock out a former UFC champion, Romero just laid out the perfect blueprint.

That’s unfortunate, because this should have been a big moment for him. It should have been the win that propelled him directly into UFC middleweight title contention. And, eventually, I think it still will be.

When we look back at the record book, we’ll see a TKO win over Tim Kennedy followed by a TKO win over Machida, and maybe we’ll forget the assorted weirdness associated with both. We’ll see instead a guy who may very well be the best 185-pound fighter in the world. Seems like it wouldn’t hurt if he made it a little easier to help us see that without getting distracted by the details.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 70, check out the UFC Events section of the site.