VIDEO | Jeremy Stephens and Yair Rodriguez nearly brawl at hotel, use anti-gay slurs

Yesterday, we heard all about a near-brawl between Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens. This confrontation was said to have occurred at the fighter hotel in Mexico City, shortly after the pair’s UFC Mexico fight ended in a No Contest due to an inadvertent eye-poke. Now, we’ve got video of the incident. See it below (via TMZ).

The video confirms much of what Stephens said of the incident. Yair Rodriguez approached him, and what looked at first like a polite exchange quickly devolved into an ugly confrontation.

After a deluge of profanity, Stephens pushed Rodriguez. The trash talk then reached a fever pitch, as the pair called each other “p**sies” and ultimately, “fa***ts.”

“He comes up all cordial, giving a thumbs up,” Stephens recounted on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on Monday. “He’s like ‘Hey everything ok?’ He comes up, shakes my hand, trying to be a gentleman… Then he starts talking shit to me. I’m like ‘I’m not from karate school. bro, I’m from the street. I’m here to compete, I’m here to fight, I’m here to kill you.’

“Right away my mentality was ‘back the f**k up,’ so I shoved him,” Stephens continued. “His coaches, his Dad, his parents and everybody was like ‘whoa, whoa whoa.’ I know his sister has footage. I’m waiting for them to release that footage but I guarantee they’re not going to release it, cause he looked like a coward there, coming up. I thought he was trying to be a gentleman, unfortunately that wasn’t it. He wants to talk and say anything? I don’t know Yair, he doesn’t know me, but I’m not like that. I’m not gonna let you come up and talk s**t especially after you eye-poked me.”

Since this incident, Jeremy Stephens has been calling for a rematch with Yair Rodriguez. Do you think the UFC should book the fight?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 9/24/2019.