Marvin Vettori recently made headlines with a video that spread throughout social media of him confronting Karl Roberson in a hotel lobby after Roberson pulled out of their fight the morning of. 

The withdrawal was just the latest bit of bad luck for Vettori who had seen his UFC London bout cancelled after flying hastily across the pond, as well as having a number of other bouts cancelled. The frustration of having three straight bouts cancelled over a three month period would make just about any fighter upset, and the videos clearly showed it.  

But while the video appeared to show Vettori as the aggressor, Vettori doesn’t see it that way. In fact, he says that before the cameras started rolling, he was largely calm and was just asking questions. 

“Obviously I wanted to talk to him face to face and ask him what happened,” Vettori said of the incident. “I found him in the lobby and I went up to him and said ‘what happened? Why did you pull out?”

At that point he, Roberson, and Roberson’s team of coaches had a conversation about the pull out. After feeling ill after weighing in, Roberson talked with the UFC medical team who checked on his kidney function amongst other things. 

At that point, Vettori claims he was still relatively relaxed. Although he was not happy about some of Roberson’s choices, he kept those thoughts to himself. 

“I didn’t say this, but to me you are looking for a way out,” Vettori said. “Don’t call [the UFC medical team] right away because obviously they’re going to pull you from the fight… of course you just did a weight cut, 99% you’re going to be off.” 

After the conversation, Vettori went to leave the lobby, but did want to include his thoughts one last time to Roberson, who he said agreed with his assessment. 

“Listen, you know you f***ed up? You know it’s a f***ed up situation?’ I said that,” Vettori revealed. “He said ‘yeah, I know - I f***ed up’ or something like that.”

Vettori then claims that he turned to leave after that point, having still not lost his cool. However, that’s when things took a turn. 

“The moment I was walking off he said ‘but I heard you said I’m scared to fight you’. From there he kind of put him chest out to challenge me, like let’s fight now,” he said. “That’s when I freaked out. How the f*** are you going to try to fight me now in the lobby when we were supposed to fight in a couple of hours?”

Of course this is the portion that many saw on the video - a clearly angry Vettori trying to get in Roberson’s face. 

Now with this fight rebooked, he’ll get his chance to get in Roberson’s face.