UFC commentator Paul Felder has endured his fair share of complaints since joining the commentary team. He was in a heated online spat with middleweight Marvin Vettori recently, and revealed on The MMA Hour that he had to iron things out with “The Italian Dream” backstage at a UFC event.
“They were like, ‘Guys, OK, before we start, I know there’s been back and forth, we’re going to handle this like adults – you guys feel free to vent both sides of your story.’
Why Paul Felder Squashed His Marvin Vettori Beef
Marvin gave his reasons on why he felt slighted and whatever, and I gave my reasons on why I didn’t think I did anything that was really against him, and we kind of hashed it out. And ever since, we’ve been… I don’t think he’s going to be my best friend or likes me necessarily, but I feel like there’s no real bad blood there.”
Felder also joked that, considering that Vettori is an active fighter several weight divisions above him, he wasn’t about to get into a fistfight with the man.
“At this point, if Marvin wanted to kick my ass, let’s be honest, he probably could. He’s a top middleweight right now, and I’m a very skinny former fighter who commentates and does triathlons on the side.” Felder’s experience also taught him to dismiss online criticism, especially from Twitter.
“I fell into that trap, too, early on. I’d be like, ‘Oh, we’re on a nice five-minute break, they’re playing some features, I don’t have to do to the bathroom, let me scroll through Twitter,’ and it’s just like, ‘Felder sucks! Get him off of this! He sucked as a fighter, he sucks as a commentator now!’
The quicker you realize that it’s every single one of us… there’s always going to be somebody out there that thinks we absolutely suck, whether it’s [Daniel Cormier, Dominick Cruz, Michael Bisping,] me, Laura [Sanko], you, it doesn’t matter – somebody’s going to think we absolutely suck, and now, in today’s world, anybody, no matter who you are, no matter how bad your life is, you can go and tell somebody else that they suck. So it took me a while to realize that, and now, I truly do believe I’ve grown a thick skin.”
Have you enjoyed Paul Felder’s UFC commentary? Is he right to dismiss the online critics, or could he take some advice from Marvin Vettori? Let us know in the comments.
