Valerie Letourneau and Joanne Calderwood put on an awesome fight at UFC Fight Night 79, with an odd ending. Letourneau turned her back and darted away, as a baffled referee tried to take in what was happening, and Calderwood sprinted forward, landing a knee to the butt, and a face punch. Meanwhile the commentators continued speculation that Letourneau had taken a stunning punch to the breast, while goofs on the internet pondered whether Calderwood’s kick had perhaps broken a breast implant.
Letourneau was not impressed with all the chatter, and explained what actually happened on Facebook, in English and her native French.
“I want to clarify something, my daughter told me what the commentators were saying during the fight, and I felt insulted,” she began.
“I have been practicing martial arts for 17 years, so I have no problem taking hits to the chest. It is the rule, and it isn’t worse than a low kick! My only problem during the fight is that my bra literally slipped under my breasts. This is why I stared, embarrassed, at the referee, and I have no idea what Jojo told me, but I had to keep fighting. It seems that I was being mocked because I seemed to be complaining of blows to the breast. I think that I have nothing to prove regarding the numbers of hits I can take without complaining.
“Guys, would you be able to keep fighting without being distracted if one of your nuts was slipping out of your shorts?
“Anyway, it does not excuse my defeat, but I wanted to clarify this part of the fight!”
The fighter then clarified her remarks further.
“Ok, now this is a big misunderstanding! When I talk about my top went down I’m talking about the first part of this video,” she wrote. “JoJo won the fight fare and square with a body shot about a minute after, when I turned my back and she knock me out with that elbow and spinning back fist.”
So to clarify, Letourneau explained that the beginning of the end was a body shot, but earlier in the round when she stopped suddenly, it was because of a wardrobe malfunction, not the mysterious effects of a strike to the breast.
This is the latest in a series of unfortunate incidents with Reebok. The debut of the apparel in the UFC can be summed up in one word – Giblert. Then the compensation was for most fighters below what they were making previously. While fighters pay to wear for example Roots of Fight, the Reebok styling has been favorably compared with an Uno card. At UFC on FOX 12, UFC women’s bantamweight Elizabeth Phillips had a wardrobe malfunction vs. Jessamyn Duke. And at UFC 199, Urijah Faber’s shorts fell down during a bantamweight title fight with Dominick Cruz. The UFC is an extraordinary company; it has driven mixed martial arts into the mainstream, from basically less than nothing. But the deal with Reebok is not serving anyone ideally at present.
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