In 'painful' backstage videos, fans get to see the raw reality of losing

Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor

If you’re in this for the agony and the ecstasy, UFC 194 was an event that really had you covered.

In an effort to document one of the year’s biggest fights from all possible angles, the UFC gave us live streaming video from inside the locker rooms of both Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo, as well as footage from cameras trained on the faces of both fighters’ cornermen, just to get that instant, unvarnished reaction in the deciding moment.

But one moment in particular seemed perhaps a little too intimate. In a video that made the rounds after the fight, we see Aldo and his team returning to the locker room after the 13-second knockout loss that cost him his UFC featherweight title. The camera looks down soundlessly from above, giving it a certain surveillance footage quality. In terms of both angle and access, it’s as close as we’re probably ever going to get to being a fly on the wall in a UFC locker room.

For some, it also seemed a bit too invasive in a painfully private moment. On messageboards, some fans wondered whether it wasn’t “poor taste” to keep the camera trained on Aldo in his post-fight despair. Others called it “disrespectful,” or just plain “heartbreaking.”

The streaming footage from inside fighters’ locker rooms is still a pretty new development for the UFC. UFC officials told MMAjunkie that the organization first tried it at UFC 189, when McGregor fought Chad Mendes, and continued it for this event, offering fans a chance to view both locker rooms on the UFC’s website throughout the night.

According to UFC officials, who said they were unsure when the locker room cameras would be implemented again, the goal was “to provide fans with a unique, behind-the-scenes look at their favorite fighters before and after their bouts.”

But are some things a little too behind-the-scenes, even in the age of the Internet?

The Aldo camp did not respond to requests for comment, but one man who’s been in Aldo’s shoes during a very similar moment is UFC light heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier.

After losing a unanimous decision to Jon Jones in his first bid for the UFC 205-pound title at UFC 182 in January, Cormier was captured in a backstage Vine video that quickly went viral.

In the short clip, Cormier could be heard crying as he was comforted by teammates immediately after the loss. It wasn’t until he saw the clip that he was even aware he was being filmed, he said, but looking back on it later he was glad the moment had been documented.

“In those moments you don’t even realize what’s going on,” Cormier told MMAjunkie. “You’re just so disappointed and upset. When I did see the video, it was really good to see, actually. I was reminded of all the support I had.”

That’s not to say it wasn’t also painful. Then again, according to Cormier, it would have been painful for him even without a camera trained on his every movement. If seeing his post-fight anguish makes fans sad or uncomfortable, he said, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

“Honestly, I think it gives people a deeper understanding of what this really means to us,” Cormier said. “You get to see it for yourself, and it’s pure. It’s not edited or anything. I don’t even think Aldo’s video had sound. In mine you heard me crying. It’s just, usually no one knows that’s happening backstage. Now they see it, and it’s just painful, raw emotion. I think it gives an insight into how much we sacrifice and how much this means to us. Because, at the end of the day, to everyone else watching it’s just entertainment. But to us, it’s our lives.”

But that’s also what made some fans object to the shot, at least in Aldo’s case. By the time he made it to the locker room – a room he very well might have considered private, where he could let his emotions out behind closed doors – he was done being a pro fighter for the night. He was back to living his life, and living through a pretty difficult moment in it, too.

But if he expected privacy in a UFC locker room, Cormier said, that’s where he went wrong. The UFC made no secret about having cameras in the locker rooms before the fight. Besides, as Cormier learned during his extensive pre-fight war of words with Jones, there’s hardly an aspect of this sport that isn’t documented in some form.

“There’s always a camera or a microphone,” Cormier said. “Always. There’s no hiding places for us anymore, especially at that level.”

For complete coverage of UFC 194, check out the UFC Events section of the site.