MusclePharm Executive VP Leonard Armenta resigns in wake of UFC 135 'Spy Gate' accusations from Rampage Jackson
by Jesse Holland Sep 23, 2011, 12:36pm EDT
via lilheathenmma.com
The UFC 135 "Spy Gate" fiasco has taken a very ugly turn.
What started as pre-fight hype between Quinton Jackson and Jon Jones, who square off tomorrow night (Sept. 24, 2011) at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, may have forced MusclePharm Executive Vice President Leonard Armenta to resign from his job.
That's because "Rampage" claims to have outed the "spy" on ESPN's SportsCenter earlier today, according to his recent Twitter post:
I just outed the spy on Sport Center,its come on top who he is but out of respect 2 #mucslepharm I won't tweet his name,he's done f$8^ em!
As expected, that didn't sit well with "Bones," who blames Jackson's "paranoia" for the exec's downfall:
Sucks some poor guy at musclepharm got fired over rampages paranoia
MusclePharm is a major sponsor to many of today's top mixed martial arts fighters and recently renewed its contract with the UFC for another two years. It even has its own facility in Denver where Rampage has been training.
It all started when Jackson made up a bogus story about hurting his hand -- but didn't tell anyone except those closest to him inside his camp. Lo and behold, UFC matchmaker Joe Silva was on the horn shortly thereafter, asking questions about the phony injury.
Jackson elaborates to Yahoo Sports:
"One of my friends was talking to Jon Jones’ manager recently, and Jon Jones’ manager was saying that he knows everything that is going on in our camp. He said he had spies in our camp and he knew everything that was going on. That got me thinking. How did he know about my hand injury that fast? It wasn’t on the Internet, and yet he knew about my hand injury right away. The UFC people were in Brazil, which is why it probably took them four hours to call me. That shows me two things: They have spies in my camp, one, and two, they’re dumb as hell, because they didn’t know how to use the information correctly and to wait. He called right away, running to Joe Silva. Joe Silva called my manager right away. Of course they’re going to say they aren’t doing it, but we’ll put the story out there to the fans and let them decide."
Was Leonard Armenta the spy? Was there a spy at all? No one knows for sure, but Rampage claims to have "outed" him on SportsCenter and the fact that Armenta resigned back on Sept. 16 doesn't exactly weigh in his favor.
Alright Maniacs, let's get some reactions to this news. Much ado about nothing? Or an unfortunate situation that has spiraled completely out of control?
Thoughts?
