After KO over Buckley, Alessio di Chirico abruptly ends media scrum to ‘send a message’

After three straight losses, middleweight Alessio Di Chirico got a new lease on his UFC career. The 31-year-old Italian scored a head kick knockout win over Joaquin Buckley, who’d compiled two straight highlight reel KO wins of his own.

The media was rightly eager to ask their questions during the post-fight scrum. Di Chirico, however, was having none of it. After responding to just one question, “Manzo” walked out 32 seconds into the interview to “send a message.”

“Guys, I’m sorry, but I promised myself I won’t do this interview,” Di Chirico told reporters. “I don’t like that you only interview the winner in this game. This sport is made by two people always: a winner and a loser. So I don’t like this, sorry.

“I appreciate your job, but I want to send this message.”

UFC president Dana White later revealed that he also had a run-in with an uncheerful Di Chirico backstage after the fight.

“I saw him in the back and I walked by him and his team, I was like, ‘Hey, congratulations,’” White said during his media scrum. “And they looked at me, like ‘the f—k you want?’ They looked at me like they lost.”

Di Chirico went home with a $50,000 bonus for Performance of the Night.