Chris Curtis is feeling much better about the circumstances around his next UFC fight.
The UFC middleweight was happy with the name he got in Kelvin Gastelum, but initially not with where the fight was placed on the UFC 287 card, which is set to go down April 8 at the Miami-Dade Arena in Miami, Fla. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+.
Being scheduled as the final fight of the preliminary card, Curtis (30-9 MMA, 4-1 UFC) was angry to see that not only did his fight not receive main card placement, but that 18-year-old Raul Rosas Jr. was fighting above him.
Curtis’ outrage resonated across the MMA community, but after a conversation with UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard, he has gained some perspective about the upside of fighting on a major platform like ESPN rather than being a paywall on pay-per-view.
“I was born salty, I will die salt,” Curtis told MMA Junkie. “Apparently people are really mad about that. The UFC is fine. What’s cool about the UFC is that I work for the weirdest company to where I can say weird sh*t and if someone is mad at me, my boss calls me and says, ‘Stop being an idiot.’
“So I got to talk to Mick Maynard about it and Mick made me feel better about it. That’s the coolest thing about being in the UFC. What other company has one of the top three guys call you, ‘Why are you upset, Chris?’ So me and Mick talked and that was really cool. He kind of broke things down to me, that was really nice. I feel good about it. But I was born salty and I will die salty. But yeah, it pissed off a lot of fans.”
Curtis wants to assure it’s noted that the outrage was nothing personal against Rosas Jr. The 35-year-old is actually fond of the prospect star and knows that it’s not on him to decide his placement on a UFC card
“I know Rosas, I pick on him over being a child,” Curtis said. “I tell I’m all the time. I love the kid. I’ve never had a problem with him. I’ve trained with him. I know his family. We never had beef at all. Hell, I’ve trained with him, I’ve helped him before. I call him a kid all the time. He knows I think he’s a child. He’s a good, tough child. So it was nothing against him. I was just mad with the order. He didn’t pick is fight’s spot.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 287.
