At the UFC 286 Media Day this past Wednesday, Jake Hadley went into detail regarding his altercation with Muhammad Mokaev in the fighter hotel.
The beef between the two stems back to their amateur days. As Muhammad Mokaev was gaining traction and making a name for himself, Hadley said he wanted to test himself against him, but Mokaev’s team turned it down. Not only that, but Hadley claimed that Mokaev ‘threatened to throw a chair at me’.
Fast forward several years, and the two are now fighting in the biggest Mixed Martial Arts promotion in the world, in the same weight class. But they don’t look like they will be fighting, in the cage at least.
With both men on the stacked UFC 286 card, they have come into close proximity to each other around the fighter hotel.
Jake Hadley said: “The kids just an idiot isn’t he. He’s coming over to me trying to fight me in the hotel, but he doesn’t want to fight me in the cage, but he’s fighting a debut guy.
“He’s a total idiot. If there’s such a problem with me then why don’t you fight me in a cage fight? We can’t be fighting here, people are going to break it up, people are going to get in trouble. What’s going to happen if I sock him in the jaw if he closes the distance?
“I’ve already had staff complaining about me before so they’re going to be complaining if I knock Mokaev out in the back. And I’m the one who’s painted as a bad guy all the while when he’s the one coming over to me.
“If there’s so much of a problem, then either fight me (in the cage) or turn up at my gym cause he’s in Birmingham all the time anyway, and I’ll bang you out there.”
With both men being prospects from the same country, the likelihood of the matchmakers scheduling them to fight each other is unlikely, but if they don’t, they may just end up getting their hands on each other elsewhere.
Watch the entire media day scrum with Jake Hadley above. He takes on Malcolm Gordon at UFC 286 on Saturday night in London at The O2 arena.
