No.5: Din Thomas vs Ricardo Mayorga
Ricardo Mayorga has been known as one of boxing’s most volatile fighters for many years, so when he took on an MMA fight against former UFC fighter Din Thomas in the Shine Fights promotion there was an air of expectation that something wild might happen.
The pre-fight press conference was a tense affair with Mayorga constantly shouting abuse at Thomas from across the room in Portugese, which his poor translator had to do her best to repeat despite all the foul language.
Eventually the two got closer together as they continued traded insults, at which point the cigarette smoking Mayorga suddenly blew smoke directly in Thomas’ face, causing the MMA fighter to angrily shove him away.
The two fighters sat back down again afterwards, but it wasn’t long before they were back up in each others faces again, and this time Mayorga completely lost his cool and aimed a backhand slap at Thomas’s face.
At first glance it seemed as if the blow actually hurt Thomas, as his legs appeared to buckle momentarily before he began trying to get at his rival, but he has since insisted that he wasn’t hurt and was in fact trying to duck down for a double-leg takedown while being held back by a particularly burly security guard.
At that stage the entire press conference was waved off, and unfortunately the fight later fell through, leaving the bad blood between them unresolved.
