Kevin Lee made some comments about Mickey Gall a few months ago, and Gall has decided to respond to them now.
Mickey Gall doesn’t forget. Gall burst onto the UFC scene with three straight wins in 2016 over the likes of CM Punk and Sage Northcutt, and got a lot of press for the guys he beat and his unique way of calling out opponents in the aftermath. Not everyone was impressed with the Lookin’ For A Fight alum though.
Back in early 2017, Kevin Lee was still trying to find his way in a stacked lightweight division. Despite a very good UFC record, he wasn’t getting the opportunities he thought he deserved and believed that Gall’s hype was manufactured. He said as much as a guest on The MMA Hour back then (via MMA Fighting):
“Mickey Gall has never fought a professional fight. Sage was the first real fighter that he ever fought, and even Sage don’t deserve to be there, so he ain’t fought no pro fights. Why give him the airtime over guys that already got like eight, nine, 10 UFC fights, and they’re real fights against real fighters that don’t get as much airtime? You’ve just got these big fights and just because people hear his name, they think (he’s really good). It’s bullsh*t, you know?”
“I’m not going to knock the hustle, but people are going to talk about what you put out. So if you make 10 articles about Mickey Gall, and you don’t make a single article about nobody else, then of course they’re going to be buzzing about him, of course they’re going to be talking about him. He ain’t doing it on his own.”
Now, after all this time, in his own MMA Hour appearance Gall fired back, challenging Lee to a no rules gym fight:
“He was talking sh-t on your show. That f—king idiot. I’d like to challenge him to a straight fight in the gym. I saw him slide into (Tony) Ferguson’s DMs trying to do that. I’d like him to slide into mine, and I’d like to get a little no-limit fight with him. We’ll call it a spar. Maybe he could get daddy Mayweather to guest sponsor him, we could bet some money. I don’t know. He’s got something on, what, [October] 7th? I’ve got something the next month (November) on the 4th. We could figure that out somewhere.”
Things have changed a lot for Lee since he made those original statements, obviously. He defeated Michael Chiesa, almost got a TUF coaching gig, and is now fighting Tony Ferguson for the interim UFC lightweight title. Gall hasn’t competed at all in 2017, but will fight Randy Brown in November. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Gall is a weight class above Lee, so none of this really makes any sense at all.
Better late than never though, I guess.