Andrei Arlovski went viral after his backstage altercation with influencer and notorious troublemaker Jack Doherty but it doesn’t sound like he ever expects to cross paths with him again.
At the Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua fight in Miami, Arlovski was making his way through a backstage area when Doherty ran into him — a move he pulls often before fleeing to hide behind his security guard — but he obviously failed to realize he was trying to prank a former UFC heavyweight champion. Second later, Arlovski was defending himself with members of Doherty’s crew swinging at him and he came right back at them before eventually making his way into an elevator alongside his family.
The infamous incident led to Doherty issuing a challenge to fight Arlovski or potentially set up a showdown with his bodyguard but the 46-year-old veteran, who next faces Ben Rothwell for the BKFC heavyweight title in February, says the outspoken social influender was ultimately more bark than bite.
“It was viral for only two days,” Arlovski told MMA Fighting. “He called me this and that and [talked about] boxing and if I understood for MMA, my manager mentioned something like Misfits contacted them … and no response. Nothing.
“He was super brave, super loud for those two or three days and now he disappeared.”
Truth be told, Arlovski didn’t even know anything about Doherty until a day after the altercation happened.
Once videos surfaced showing the backstage brawl, Arlovski started getting bombarded with calls and text messages effectively offering him congratulations for defending himself.
“When this [altercation] happened, I woke up the next morning and I didn’t understand what was going on,” Arlovski explained. “A lot of people sent me text messages, phone calls [saying] ‘you are a hero! You’re the people’s champ,’ etc.. I guess the f*cking d*ckhead, he’s not a super nice person, Jack Doherty or whatever his name is.
“You know what’s more interesting, I live in a small community and I was throwing a baseball with my son and some kids, [like 10 years old], ‘oh you’re the guy from TikTok!’ I said TikTok? I don’t have a TikTok. [They said] ‘no, I saw you against Jack Doherty!’ I’m asking my son, who’s Jack Doherty? That guy from [the Jake Paul-Anthony Joshua fight]. I’m a hero right now on TikTok. I might open a TikTok and use TikTok.”
Arlovski later admitted that the entire ordeal actually earned him more attention than some of his fights in the UFC, he wasn’t exactly excited about how the whole situation played out.
With his wife and son by his side when the brawl began, Arlovski was understandably angry that there was no security around inside the Kaseya Center in Miami to prevent the social influencers from causing trouble much less trying to intervene when several of them attacked him.
“What surprised me and why I was disappointed — nobody tried to stop the f*cking fight,” Arlovski lamented. “Everybody started recording stuff. In those days, I don’t understand them. No security. That bodyguard punched me because for some reason I thought he was [a person from the crowd] who just got lost for some reason. [I thought it was] an accident. One punch, I said what the f*ck? Second punch, I started chasing him and somebody started throwing punches from behind. It wasn’t fun.
“I really appreciated and I’m really proud of my wife and my son, they stood up for me and they tried to save my ass. That’s the only memorable moment that was very exciting and I’m proud of them.”
With his attention now turned towards his fight against Rothwell at KnuckleMania VI in Philadelphia, Arlovski is putting the whole mess behind him, especially after Doherty seemingly backed down from his supposed challenge for a fight.
“I don’t know [if we’ll ever cross paths again],” Arlovski said. “Hopefully not but maybe.”
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