We all were in for a treat this past Saturday night.
For all of those who legally paid for the pay-per-view UFC fights (definitely me, LOL), we got to see Sean O’Malley go psycho billy ninja on a dude who looked like the joker, former NFL lineman and certified psychopath Greg Hardy get his shit rocked halfway through the first round, and Conor McGregor break his tibia, while still roasting Dustin Poirier and his wife for allegedly sliding into his DMs.
However, there was some controversy circulating outside of the octagon as well.
Addison Rae, one of the most famous, if not the most famous TikTok influencer in the world, was offered a stint as a UFC commentator for the fight on Saturday.
One tweet from Rae, however, stirred up a lot of buzz within the UFC world:
“I studied broadcast journalism in college for 3 whole months to prepare for this moment.”
As you could imagine, the Twitter mob unleashed their wrath and gnashing of teeth on Rae for being unqualified.
One influencer, though, who has definitely faced similar types of criticisms, rose up in the TikToker’s defense:
Former pro golfer and model Paige Spiranac.
After a boomer quoted Rae’s tweet saying:
“Should we hire someone who busted their butt through college, and genuinely loves UFC and is hungry for an opportunity in journalism?? Nah, let’s hire Addison Rae because she’s popular for ‘throwing it back’ on tik tok.”
Spiranac responded:
“Don’t discredit all her hard work. UFC is smart to hire someone with millions of followers.”
Coming from a non-bias standpoint, I can see where the guy is coming from. Are there people out there who are more deserving of the job than Addison Rae? Absolutely.
However, it’s a business decision, and what’s gonna get more viewers? A no-name who studied journalism at Harvard, or somebody with arguably the most recognizable face in social media in this era?
Smart business is not always the majority vote.
UPDATE:
That was short lived…
