Kevin Lee scored one of the biggest wins of his career when he submitted Michael Chiesa at a UFC Fight Night event in 2017, but he claims the recently retired welterweight tried to get a rematch during a backstage altercation ahead of his final appearance with the promotion.
During his initial run with the UFC, Lee reached his greatest heights in the promotion when he defeated Chiesa and then got matched up against Tony Ferguson with an interim lightweight title on the line. The win over Chiesa came after some nasty back-and-forth between them leading up to the fight, which included a near brawl at a pre-fight press conference.
Lee reflected on that moment while lamenting about how his final appearance in the UFC happened compared to Chiesa, who received a massive sendoff for his retirement on Saturday following his win over Niko Price at UFC Seattle.
“I beat Chiesa in his most high-profile fight in the first round,” Lee wrote on Twitter. “He got a hero’s send off in the UFC, fought another retiring fighter in his hometown – mom, wife, everybody there to watch his life story.
“My last fight in UFC was on the prelim of an APEX Card during Covid against an undefeated up and coming Russian. Chiesa tried to fight me in the locker room before the fight I didn’t say a word. Cold game fam.”
The fight Lee referenced came against Rinat Fakhretdinov in 2023 when he was submitted via guillotine choke just 55 seconds into the first round. That was Lee’s final appearance in the octagon but he believes his fate with the promotion was actually sealed back in 2019.
On that night, Lee scored one of the nastiest head kick knockouts in the history of the sport after he blasted Gregor Gillespie with a fight-finishing shot in the opening round. He earned a Performance of the Night bonus for the win at Madison Square Garden in New York with President Donald Trump also in attendance for the event.
Lee claims after his win, the UFC told him that Trump wanted to meet him but instead he snuck out of the building and later made an appearance at a Bernie Sanders rally in Las Vegas where he helped introduce the U.S. Senator and two-time presidential candidate.
“Aye listen I know exactly when I went wrong in the UFC’s eyes,” Lee wrote. After I won my fight at MSG 2019 they told me Trump wants to meet. I snuck into the crowd and left the building. Then I met with Bernie Sanders a week later and did a whole speech for him. At that point I was dead in the water. I was told this. It don’t have nothing to do with Chiesa
“Let it be a lesson to any young athlete leave that politics shit alone and don’t f*ck with the church’s money.”
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