From the Twitter account of David Simon of RingsideReport.net:
Wrote an e-mail to the author of the Yves Lavigne story en français. Yves says he didn’t do the interview. Waiting for response from author.
If this is true the site that ran the piece (canoe.com) is going to have a lot of explaining to do and I would fully expect Lavigne to pursue his legal options. The story impacted the public perception of Yves as well as his reputation with the fighters that he officiates. We also know that Josh Koscheck followed up on the piece with statements that Lavigne would never ref one of his fights again. I’m sure other fighters feel the same way about a referee that would publicly make such statements and this could have greatly impacted the career of Yves.
Lending some credibility to the idea that Lavigne did not give the interview is the fact that Canoe has pulled the interview from their site. I’ll be looking forward to hearing more on this story.
(Translation of the original Canoe “interview” can be found at Watch Kalib Run)
Update: Dave Simon adds via Twitter:
Just got an e-mail from Yves Lavigne with the following 3 statements: 1. “I NEVER gave an interview to that journalist … Yves Lavigne comment 2. “I NEVER gave an interview regarding GSP vs Koscheck” and 3. “My lawyer is taking care of this matter.
Great job by Simon of following up on this and not a shock at all to hear that Yves has his lawyer all over it.
Update 2: Simon posts a story at Ringside Report.