UFC fighters sometimes say things that can backfire. Similarly, Tony Kelley made certain comments about Brazil, which Brazilian fighters opposed to. 

When Kelley’s girlfriend Andrea Lee was poked in the eye by opponent Viviane Araujo during their fight at UFC Fight Night: Blachowicz vs. Rakic, Kelley said some distasteful things about Brazilians. As reported by ‘BJPenn.com‘, he said, “that’s what they’re going to do, they’re dirty f***ing Brazilians, they’re going to f***ing cheat like that”.

Brazilian fighters, including Gilbert Burns, condemned his comments. Burns even suggested he would send Adrian Yanez money to defeat Kelley in their upcoming fight.

Yanaz and Kelley will face each other at UFC on ESPN 37 on June 18. However, Kelley has come forward to offer an explanation and also apologized. He said, “Obviously I misspoke and everyone who knows me knows that so, but at the end of the day, to give a little bit of clarification on that, I was just regarding to an eye-poke.”

“…don’t mean to categorize a whole nation of Brazil and I think most people understand that … there’s other people that just want to play the victim on that. I have nothing, nothing against Brazilians. I have nothing against anyone.”

“Much love to my Brazilian fans and friends… If you don’t like what I said, I’m, I don’t know what to tell you on that. Sorry. Sorry, you got your feelings hurt.”

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Before this, the fighter also explained what happened in the then-and-there when he said it.

Tony Kelley: Did someone intentionally share his clip?

According to Kelley, his comments were not aired while the fight was on. He said someone had taken that particular clip and “sent it off into the twitterverse”. While he clarified his side of the story, he did not like being targeted that way.

The bantamweight fighter is coming off two recent wins. He holds an 8-2 record whereas his opponent sports a 15-3 record. Their bout will be part of the prelims.

UFC on ESPN 37 takes place at Moody Center, Austin, TX. It would be interesting to see what new both the fighters bring to the Octagon.

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What do you think about Kelley’s explanation? Let us know in the comments.