SCOTS MMA star Paul ‘Bearjew’ Craig has revealed how he was left sweating after he handed out free beers – not realising they belonged to the President of the UFC.
The 35-year-old, who hosts the Leather’d podcast with fellow scrappers Chris Bungard and Ross Cooper, told yesterday of how he came close to getting on the wrong side of Dana White.
Craig from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire was recalling how he had gone into a room with other VIPs during a UFC event and noticed that the bar was unmanned.
Bearjew admitted to his co-hosts that he then decided to act as a temporary barman to keep everyone’s drinks topped up during the event.
He recalled: “They take all the people who were VIPs up to this room so they put all the fighters and me with all these people in this room.
“It’s just a room the size of this – there was a bar, the bar was un-manned and there were loads of bottles on top of it.
“What would you do in my situation?”
Fellow co-host Ross Cooper chimes in and admits he would do exactly what he suspects Craig has done, saying: “Help yourself.”
Craig quips: “You’re f*****g right I did.”
Craig then mimics the action of taking a bottle cap off, saying: “So I end up pop pop pop pop so I end up giving out all of these Modelos.
“Big Tom Aspinall is like ‘Paul, is there any whisky there?’ and I said ‘I’ll go and check’.”
The Scots fighter decided that whilst there was no whisky in plain sight, there might be some hidden away in a cupboard, leading him to jump the bar to have a look.
The Airdrie native said: “I hop the bar and I’m rummaging through all these boxes – I then find some f***ing Jack Daniels.
“I pull it out, give the big man a couple of nips, pass out a couple more, pop some more beers then a wee guy comes in doesn’t he.”
Unfortunately it looked as though that was going to be the end of the free bar for the night, as the unknown man demanded answers from the boozing fighters.
Craig recalls: “[He said] Who said you were allowed to do that?
“Some f***er grasses in and says Paul Craig, you could have just said ‘Aw it was just some other guy’ but no, you used my full name.”
Bearjew then tells how he was out later that night with UFC vice-president Mark Cowan who told him that Dana knew exactly who had given out his beers.
He joked: “I then end up out with the UFC guys – Mark Cowan and that – and then he’s like ‘Do you know who’s room that was?’ and I said no and he went – ‘It was Dana White’s’.
“I went ‘Aw f**k’ then he went ‘He knows it was you as well’ and I was like ‘Aw f**k’.”
The clip was shared on social media yesterday by the podcast boys themselves with the caption: “Paul stole Dana White’s beer?!”, where it has received over 3,800 likes.
Paul Craig has a record of 8-1-6 in the UFC with an incredible seven Performance of the Night awards which net him approximately £40,000 every time.
Dana White meanwhile boasts an estimated net worth of a whopping £408 million, and is largely credited with developing the UFC into what it is today, after being first installed as president in 2001.
