Why cameras pulled back at UFC on FOX 5

When FOX entered into a seven year deal with the UFC, fans anticipated that the best sport’s production values in the world would enhance already insanely great evening. FOX delivered when the Phantom Cam caught close ups of shots landing cleanly at 20,000 frames per second.

However, during Saturday night’s UFC on FOX 5, more than once the screen inexplicably pulled back to an impossibly long shot.

It happened perhaps most annoyingly when Henderson neutralized Diaz’s leg lock attacks by dropping down into a full split.

Fans assumed error, but in fact, the cause was Nick Diaz, or more precisely, his middle finger.

This is Benson Henderson using his finger for dramatic effect:

He learned it from his mom:

He can do it with two fingers, too:

This of course is Nate Diaz expressing himself:

It turns out that Diaz, frustrated with rounds of being punched in the thigh and kicked in the head, expressed himself to Henderson during the fight. FOX, concerned about the sensibilities of both sponsors and the wider fight fan audience, censored what really happened. FOX pulled the camera back so far all you could see what the Octagon, and not who was in it, or what they were doing with their finger.

“It’s not appropriate for air,” said a FOX spokesperson. “But the folks in the UFC’s production truck were on the ball. They cut away so quickly that it was virtually indiscernible to the naked eye. We regret even a small fraction of a second snuck through.”