It remains to be seen if Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens will be booked for a rematch. But if that happens, it certainly sounds like the lead-up to the bout could be pretty, pretty intense.

The awful ending to Saturday’s headliner

Rodriguez and Stephens were booked to fight in the main event of UFC Mexico City, in a fight that had a lot off buzz behind it. After all, in Stephens you have one of the most aggressive and dangerous featherweights on the UFC roster, and in Rodriquez, you have one of the most dynamic, deadly strikers in the 145 division.

The fight, however, ended in disastrous circumstances. After Stephens took an accidental eye poke moments in, he was given five minutes to recover. “Lil’ Heathen” was unable to open his left eye after five minutes, however, and the fight was called.

Afterward, Rodriquez turned heads by raising questions about whether Stephens may have been able to continue. The latter, not surprisingly, didn’t care for the comments and challenged “Pantera” to a rematch.

Stephens’ account of running into Rodriquez

Well, Stephens spoke with MMA Fighting on Monday, and while doing so, the veteran made the following claim:

“At first he came up with a thumbs up, I thought he was going to come over and be cordial and say, “I’m sorry, and let’s run it back,’” Stephens said. “But he comes up, shakes my hand and then immediately starts talking s—t. Where I come from, you don’t do that, bro. I shoved him back across the hotel and I saw that his sister was recording with her phone, thinking they’re going to catch some little glimpse, or him talking s—t to me.

“He got shoved and once he got shoved, he didn’t even take a step forward. His family didn’t do s—t either. I was about to smack him and his coaches and anybody who came at me, but they all immediately backed up.”

“Let’s run it back,” Stephens said. “That’s what I was telling him. Bring it. I’m in shape, you’re in shape, we both spent money, we both lost money on this, now it’s a check raise. Now, more eyes are on the show…”

So, it will be interesting to see if Rodriguez has a different take of what happened here (or if a video surfaces). In terms of a rematch, you would think the UFC will be on board with this, since there is more attention on this match-up now than ever before.

Rodriguez, however, has said he was never that keen on facing Stephens to begin with, since the latter is ranked one spot lower than him (at #8).

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