The UFC 332 pre-fight press conference in Salt Lake City was meant to frame a middleweight main-card opener. It became a language mix-up instead.
Cameroon’s Ateba Gautier, who trains with Manchester Top Team, meets Roman Kopylov on Saturday at the Delta Center. Gautier is 11-1, riding a 10-fight winning streak and tied for the longest active run in the UFC middleweight division.
A reporter opened by addressing him in French, the language of his hometown of Douala. Gautier answered in French. No one in the room translated the exchange.
A later question came in English, about whether Kopylov, a veteran with far more UFC experience, represented a sterner test. Gautier answered in English, and the reply was difficult to miss.
He asked whether Kopylov was human, noted the two legs and two hands, then corrected himself on the size of those legs, and said the two of them would find out in the cage. He added that he takes the Russian seriously and acknowledged the gap in professional experience.
Dana White still went looking for help. The UFC CEO told the room the promotion had been caught short.
“We got f—-d out of that one,” White said. “We don’t have a translator for him. Sorry.”
The clip spread quickly. Fans noted that Gautier had just spoken English, that he has done so in other recent interviews, and that Cameroon lists both English and French as official languages. Others asked how the largest promotion in the sport could fly a fighter in for a main-card bout and not have a French speaker on hand.
A few compared it to an earlier press conference, when White requested a translator after Mexico’s Diego Lopes answered in English with an accent that was mistaken for Spanish.
Gautier smiled through the exchange. The awkward part belonged to the people running the microphone.
