Rodrigo Botti tells his side of incident with Matt Brown

At UFC 198, fights didn’t just take place inside the cage. Top ranked UFC welterweight Matt Brown was hit in the head multiple times on his walkout to the Octagon.

In addition, Brown was then hit in the back of the head in the hotel lobby the next morning. The man, who was revealed to be Brown’s former coach Rodrigo Botti, was then chased down and caught in a video posted online.

Now, Botti is telling his side of the story, admitting to hitting Brown, but saying that they are even after Brown’s alleged attack on him back in 2015.

He spoke to MMAFighting:

“I saw him the night before (Sunday) because I went to the hotel to see my friends,” Botti told MMA Fighting. “I went back to my hotel to sleep and went back to their hotel to say goodbye to my friends. When you’re cowardly assaulted like I was, you can’t control yourself. This guy destroyed my career, I lost part of my vision because of him, had to do another surgery. I couldn’t sleep normally for 15 months, it changed my entire life. I simply exploded (when I saw him).”

“I didn’t listen to the podcast and I’m not interested in listening to this guy’s voice,” he continued, “but I read that he said that I threw a punch that hit his shoulder. I guess he’s a bit confused. He said I hit the back of his head, and now that I hit his shoulder. He’s changing his story. But if he’s hurt somewhere it’s not his shoulder or the back of his head, but I don’t wanna get into more details. I’ll be honest, he’s in the past already. He was a coward when he did what he did to me, and I’m satisfied with my attitude now. We are even.”

“I think what I did to him had the same proportion what he did to me,” Botti said. “Not that much, actually, because when he attacked me he had a friend with him, and I was alone this time against him and three or four friends. And now this guy Vinicius Lemes got himself into trouble. He got himself into a fight he didn’t know what was all about, and he’s probably not sleeping well at night because he’s in trouble now.”

“And saying that I hit his shoulder… I won’t get into details, but do you think that an aggressive person like him would go after me outside the hotel if I had punched him? He punched a fan in his walk out because he grabbed his hood, and he didn’t go after me? He had a reason not to come after me, and this ‘Pequeno’ guy went after me.”