Daniel Cormier nearly backed out of his Russian reality TV show with Jon Jones when things escalated to a dangerous point during filming.
Earlier this year, Cormier and Jones served as coaches on the Russian reality TV show, ALF MMA, which has become somewhat famous in MMA circles for the chaos that has ensued as other past coaches like Khamzat Chimaev, Nate Diaz, and Petr Yan took part. But perhaps the craziest thing that’s ever happened on the show went down on the most recent episode, nearly causing Cormier to call it quits in the middle of filming.
In the third episode of the season, released on Tuesday, things took a turn when two fighters with personal history came face-to-face and immediately started brawling. This set off a chain reaction of events, where more fights broke out. In the chaos, one fighter, Sergei, who appeared to be trying to break up a fight, got blindsided with a punch, which led to him trying to grab a kitchen knife, while screaming furious threats.
And while Cormier and Jones agree on very little in life, both men thought this was way too intense a situation.
“We’ve seen a few fights since we’ve been here, and this was by far the biggest fight,” Cormier said. “… Eventually, Sergei’s so mad, because now he has a cut under his chin, that he runs into the kitchen, and he wants to grab a knife. Because all he’s thinking about now is protecting himself. It was very intense.”
“It was really one of the most intense moments that I personally have seen, being a part of this show for two seasons now,” Jones said. “Sergei went to grab that knife and scared the shit out of everybody. Daniel Cormier, one of his assistants was really close to the situation, our female translator had to grab the knife from one of the guys. It was really intense, and I think for the first time, everybody on set kind of felt really unsafe.”
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Eventually, cooler heads prevailed, with various parties intervening to prevent further fighting. But while things were getting taken under control, Cormier spoke with some of his team about calling the whole thing off and going home.
“I think we’re gonna go home,” Cormier said. “I might give them their money back and stay home. I can’t do this shit. It’s too much. Somebody’s going to get hurt bad. Like, bad. Somebody’s going to get hurt really bad.
“I didn’t know it was like this. It’s really bad. This guy got hit in the face when he wasn’t paying attention. The guy with the broken face, he was sitting there, and somebody hit him on the side of the face. Now, they’re fighting outside.
“Hey man, I don’t know if I can do this. Tell them this is too much. I might not be able to do this. Go back money, and I’ll go [to] America. This is crazy, bro. Knife, everything. The guy got hit in the face. I don’t mind if they start fighting a little bit, but this is crazy here. Bottles flying everywhere, over there’s crazy. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Of course, Cormier going home would throw the entire show into disarray, and once things finally calmed down, Jones played peacemaker, addressing all the participants and letting them know that if this continued, Cormier wouldn’t be the only one leaving the show.
“Right now, one of our coaches is debating on staying,” Jones said to everyone. “At the end of the day, Daniel Cormier is a big star in America. He’s a father, he’s a coach. It’s his responsibility to make sure that his team is safe while they’re out here.
“At the end of the day, this competition, we’re all on the same team. I know you guys have real conflicts, but ultimately, our goal is to make good TV. If we lose one of our coaches, we can’t make good TV. The fighting, the violence, it’s a lot of fun. But nothing on this show is worth losing your life, whether that’s in the ground or in jail. I understand how Daniel feels, because when I see things like knives, I personally don’t want to be here either. So guys, please don’t make it hard for myself or Daniel by making this show life-threatening.”
In the end, everyone got on the same page and calmed down, and neither Cormier nor Jones ended up leaving the show.
You can watch the whole episode below.
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