Ariel Helwani has butted heads with UFC president Dana White on many occasions and also had a falling out with Paddy Pimblett in November 2021. His spat with Pimblett apparently began after it was reported that the Liverpudlian's manager demanded a fee for the fighter to appear in an interview, which the journalist refused.
When Dana White and Paddy Pimblett got together for a podcast on the Liverpool native's YouTube channel, they absolutely trashed the veteran journalist.
Skip to 16:21 for Pimblett and White trashing Helwani:
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Pimblett alluded to journalists who "earned off of fighters" before taking a shot at Ariel Helwani:
"Ariel Helwani in particular. Like, he loves earning money off fighters. Every decent job he's had, he's been sacked from. And now he's just a biased content creator. He hates on you [Dana White], he hates on the UFC, he even hates on me now. And, it proper annoys me, because he uses fighters for clicks. [He] uses fighters to make money, and then has the audacity to talk about the UFC and yourself, saying that you don't pay the fighters enough."
Pimblett then directly addressed Ariel Helwani and told him to pay fighters to appear in interviews, as the journalist purportedly made tons of money off UFC fighters. 'The Baddy' finished off his rant by calling Helwani a "rodent," to which White hooted and clapped before chiming in:
"He's a massive sack of f*****g s**t is what he is. He's the biggest f*****g piece of s**t of all time, and I couldn't have said it better."
Not one to back down, Helwani took to his podcast The MMA Hour to respond to both Pimblett and White. Helwani referred to Dana White as an "entity" as opposed to a person, and said White's verbal tirade against him had no effect on him, since he's heard the same old abuse from the UFC president one too many times.
A closer look at Ariel Helwani's response to Paddy Pimblett
Ariel Helwani said that he didn't feel bad about all the mean things Dana White and Paddy Pimblett said about him. He has endured years of verbal abuse at the hands of the UFC president and has developed a thick skin for any name calling. He also said that Dana White is mad that he couldn't get Helwani banned or deplatformed from the MMA landscape.
Watch Helwani respond to Pimblett and White's accusations below:
Name-calling aside, Helwani said that what bothers him the most is when people perpetrate lies.
Helwani responded to Pimblett calling him a liar, claiming that he didn't make a single dime off of UFC fighters and MMA as he's bound by a contractual agreement with regards to covering MMA content. The journalist further stated that the only time he made money apart from his job was when he printed merchandise of himself and wrote editorials for Substack, the proceeds of which he gave to cancer charities.
Helwani also played a clip of Paddy Pimblett in which the Liverpool star is heard asking him for an interview.