Ariel Helwani Discusses Kimbo Slice And The Lifting Of His Lifetime Ban On ‘SportsCenter’

The dust is settling from UFC 199 and Ariel Helwani is officially unbanned from covering the UFC. Everyone involved took a step back, thought about what was happening (the UFC shooting itself in the foot) and decided that it was time that the most popular and best MMA reporter in the business should probably be covering the biggest MMA promotion in the world. It made sense. And so, Ariel Helwani went on SportsCenter to discuss the lifting of his ban, and the sudden loss of Kimbo Slice.

And all of a sudden here we are again. It’s surprising, I didn’t think this would happen, but I was hoping as I told you when we spoke, that cooler heads would prevail because I believe I did nothing wrong and I would do the same thing again, so I’m happy that they decided to do this. I’m very thankful and I’m happy that I can just go back to covering the sport and not being a part of the story. I just want to cover the stories of the great fighters of this sport.

On Kimbo:

“This is a sport that’s really just 23 years old. If you want to talk about the pioneers of this sport, he really broke down a lot of those barriers.”

The MMA universe will be reeling from the loss of Kimbo, but at least the fans got a small bit of good news in the end. Ariel Helwani is back where he belongs.

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