How The UFC Should Have Responded To Sexual Assault Charges Against Abdul Razak Alhassan

Last week I wrote a story about how the UFC has not mentioned anything about welterweight Abdul Razak Alhassan in more than a year. The reason for the UFC's silence on the fighter, who is managed by Ali Abdelaziz (who I wrote about here), is that Alhassan was charged with two counts of sexual assault in September 2018.

In any other sport, the league, the team and the athlete's management would have responded. Even if that response only acknowledged that they knew about the accusations. The UFC and Abdelaziz reacted to the charges against Alhassan by doing, well, nothing at all.

I received some comments about my story that asked what the UFC was supposed to say about Alhassan. My knee jerk reaction was that the promotion should say anything. That would have been better than what it has done in the past year.

On Friday, ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, speaking on "Outside the Lines" did an excellent job of laying things out for the UFC.

Schaap, flustered by the way the NFL and the Patriots had handled the Antonio Brown situation, said, "Here he is (Bill Belichick), the No. 1 coach in football, arguably in all of sports. Arguably the greatest of all time and he's got a star player that he signed a couple of weeks ago. It's not like a guy who has been playing for him forever that you assume that they really understand each other, know each other. And it's been this series of allegations and these texts in the period since he's become a Patriot and it's just not good enough for Bill Belichick to say, 'I just don't want to talk about it.'"

"He said, 'We take this very seriously," said Schaap. "But he should say, 'Look, this is not behavior that we condone. If these allegations are true, it's unacceptable. This is not a franchise that is going to be about winning at all costs.' There is more that Bill Belichick could say."

Not long after Schaap criticized Belichick, the Patriots released Brown.

I think what Schaap said would have been perfect for the UFC to say about Alhassan. Instead, we get silence, which the UFC is famous for when the brand could be hurt by anything.

Avoiding the issue does not make it go away. In fact, that makes things look worse for the promotion.

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Story Time

In 1997, I saw Iggy Pop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with some friends. If I remember correctly, Pop wore clear vinyl pants during the performance. After Pop wrapped things up, we went to Denny's for some late-night eats. No one in my group smoked so we sat in the no-smoking area (remember this was 1997). We ate, I think I had cheese fries and I do believe there was a hair in them.

While we were bundling up, it was December, and waiting at the till to pay, we were near the door. I glanced over to the waiting area inside the entrance, and there sat Iggy Pop. Pop, who seemed to have morphed back into James Osterberg since the show had ended, was clad in a sweater, glasses and not transparent vinyl pants. He sat quietly and cross-legged. What was he waiting for? From what I could glean from the conversation, he and his group were holding for a table in the smoking section.

After hearing that, I looked at the smoking tables. The majority of them were filled with younger folks who obviously had no idea that the 50-year-old gentleman who was patiently sitting and waiting was one of the wildest wild men in rock history.

We left. I don't know how long Mr. Osterberg waited for his table and his Moons Over My Hammy order.