Ben Rothwell points to his track record in response to anyone questioning the circumstances surrounding his fight-week withdrawal at BKFC 56.
Rothwell was announced to be out of his scheduled heavyweight matchup with fellow former UFC heavyweight Todd Duffee this past Saturday just two days before the event. He came down with an illness early in the week, and despite trying to find a path to a quick recovery and the chance to compete, it simply wasn’t in the cards.
“Right now in my area of Wisconsin, we’re facing the highest cases of COVID and the flu ever,” Rothwell told MMA Junkie Radio. “Not just for the year, but ever. I got, not quite a 3-year-old, but a little baby. He does daycare. No blaming him, either, but everyone with children knows it increases your chances, so just doing our best to be healthy. I’ve been good, I’ve been doing awesome, and then Sunday night rolls around, he starts getting sick. I get worried; I panic. Monday, it’s starting to get worse. So I call my management, and we talked to Dave (Feldman) and they’re like, ‘Let’s just see. Maybe it passes.’ So we’re trying.
“Tuesday rolls around and I’m like, ‘We’ve got a problem.’ I was a wreck. All I know is on Tuesday we’re trying, and David Feldman’s like, ‘Here’s some options. Let’s try to do this and see if we can still make the fight.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I want to do it more than anything.’ This was all happening in the morning. By the afternoon it was like, there’s no way. We called it. All day Wednesday and Thursday I had the flu. I was laid out. No commission on the planet was going to OK me to fight in that condition anyway.”
As Rothwell sat at home trying to get himself physically right, Duffee attended the BKFC 56 pre-fight press conference and used the platform to trash his opponent. Duffee claimed Rothwell “lost to Thanksgiving” and ate too much to make weight for the fight, then also indicated Rothwell was weak for not fighting with COVID-19, which he claims to have done himself during the pandemic.
Rothwell, 42, didn’t take the comments personally or get upset with them but said everything to come out of Duffee’s mouth was quite outrageous.
“I know Todd made a comment about fighting with COVID,” Rothwell said. “I don’t know why he said that. Why would you say you knowingly fought with COVID? No you didn’t. And if you did, that sucks for your opponent. Not only do I want to fight at my best, obviously. I’ve fought with injuries. I’ve probably fought with colds before. But there’s just some things where it’s not going to work, then risking affecting everybody on the plane, everybody at the fight, all the BKFC staff. It just feels pretty selfish if you just knowingly subject everyone to that anyway, pretty irresponsible. I don’t do any of those things. And I wasn’t moving. Wednesday and Thursday, it was a mess.
“Todd Duffee made comments like, ‘Oh I lost to Thanksgiving with my weight.’ It’s hilarious. It’s like, dude, I have more than 50 fights, and I weighed in at 265 for those fights. I walk around big all the time. I’ve always cut weight. Everybody knows I’ve been doing this for a long time, always cut weight, and I made 265. This fight was at 275. That ain’t a f*cking problem, man. I’ll make the weight. But when you have the flu and you’re laid out sick, that doesn’t f*cking matter. I think he’s mostly just upset. I’ve been there too. I’ve been on both ends of this. I’ve had guys pull out not just a week out – I got on the scale, I weighed in and UFC officials came to me and go, ‘Yeah, your guy is out.’ So it’s like, I’ve been there.”
Rothwell admits he was “heartbroken” by the entire situation but thinks the fight with Duffee will be salvaged, potentially in February. He also expressed interest in facing newly crowned BKFC heavyweight champion Mick Terrill but said he will oblige to whichever direction BKFC brass want to take him.
“This is only the second time I’ve pulled out (in) 24 years, over 50 professional fights, only the second time I’ve pulled out with illness,” Rothwell said. “The other time was against Cro Cop in like my second UFC fight. Then I’ve had two injuries, one was my shoulder then something random over the years. That’s pretty good. If you look at all the fights I’ve got, I’ve still got a pretty good record of being there and showing up. So it just sucks. It was really bad timing.”
