UFC fans in Mexico City throw trash, drinks at Jeremy Stephens over shortened fight

The fans in Mexico City attending “UFC Fight Night: Rodríguez vs. Stephens” at Mexico City Arena exhibited poor behavior after the main event was called off after just 15 seconds on Saturday night.

Jeremy Stephens was poked in the eye by Yair Rodriguez at the very beginning of the fight and deemed by doctors unable to continue. The fight, which was the headline event, was termed a no contest due to an accidental eye poke.

That outcome was highly undesirable to the fans, who began throwing junk into the cage. Stephens and his team were hit with drinks and other stuff as they tried to make their way from the cage to the locker room:

Can’t recall ever seeing behavior like this from fans at a UFC event. Maybe I’m forgetting one, but not even in the early days. Gross. pic.twitter.com/12QqIl8hod

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) September 22, 2019

View this post on Instagram

‪Wow. Check out the crowd throwing ice and water bottles after tonight’s main event was ruled a no-contest seconds into the bout. @LiLHeathenMMA couldn’t open his eye after getting caught with an accidental poke. So unfortunate for everyone after all the hard work put in by both guys for this fight. ‬

A post shared by Heidi Androl (@heidiandrol) on Sep 21, 2019 at 7:50pm PDT

triste final de #UFCMexico pic.twitter.com/kiIKptEYGG

— Karina Rodríguez (@kari_rod8) September 22, 2019

This is absolutely garbage, unacceptable behavior from the fans. Nobody is happy with an outcome like that, but disappointing finishes sometimes occur in combat sports. That’s part of the risk fans assume when they attend fights. The benefit is being able to enjoy several hours worth of entertainment; there were 12 fights total on the card.

The UFC will likely keep this in mind before considering a return to Mexico City in the future.