Werdum wants his job back

Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and said he wants his job back. In October of last year, Werdum protested the mandatory wearing of Reebok apparel in the Octagon, with a photoshop of a Nike logo over his Reebok apparel as he does a walkout. The caption was hashtagged #chupa #mishuevos #reebok.

That translates as #suck #myballs #Heebok.

“For people saying I’d get in trouble, there will be no trouble,” he wrote shortly afterward on Facebook. “It was just a protest, something that before we could show any sponsor we wanted.”

Presumably in retaliation, Werdum was fired as a color commentator for the Spanish language UFC broadcast, something he had done for some time, and with excellence. Now he wishes to walk the comments back, and return to his commentator work.

You know me, I’m like Nate Diaz, maybe more, said Werdum, as transcribed by Danny Segura for MMA Fighting. I joke a lot and I don’t think the UFC understands my joking. I have a lot of fans, and one made the thing where he took off the Reebok and put Nike and I just reposted it, just a repost. The UFC doesn’t understand it’s a joke, they don’t understand. I want to come back to my job at UFC network. I love it, it’s my passion. I have a lot of people asking me, ‘Hey, Werdum, when are you going to come back again?’ and I say, ‘I’m just waiting for the boss to say, ‘it’s okay, your time off is done now.’

I have nothing bad with Reebok. Reebok is a very good sponsor of the UFC and I have a good relationship with the UFC, I’m with the UFC 100 percent, and I work a lot for the UFC. I go a lot to Latin America and I do a lot of events in Mexico, so I’m just waiting to come back again.

I want to go maybe next week to Las Vegas to talk with Dana White about everything. I have a lot of jokes in my Instagram and social media, I joke a lot, and Dana doesn’t understand me, maybe the joking is different in Brazil than in America. So I want to go there and talk to him, maybe joke with him and post too, you know.

I’ve worked for the UFC a long time, and I’ve been an ambassador for Latin America, I’ve done a lot of good jobs in Mexico, work a lot for the Latin American fans. So I just want to go there, sit down, have a coffee, and be like, ‘Hey, Dana, I’m 100 percent with the UFC, you know this.’ So yeah, just sit and talk is very important.

In an ideal world, Werdum gets his job back, and Reebok gets replaced with UnderArmor.