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Come Saturday night, MMA fans will see Bobby Green step inside the Octagon for the last time. No, he’s not retiring—although he’s been telling everyone he would be—he’s not testing free agency, he’s not even looking to making the jump to boxing like so many other veteran talents. In fact, he’s not going anywhere.
But, following UFC Vegas 71—this weekend at the UFC’s Apex facility in Las Vegas, NV—Bobby Green will be gone. In his place will be shiny new action lightweight fighter King. That’s right, the former Strikeforce talent and KOTC champion is taking his nickname legal. From that day forward he won’t just be ‘King’ inside the Octagon, he’ll be King everywhere he goes.
“I’ve been telling everybody that I was retiring after this fight, and what I meant was, I was retiring as Bobby Green,” Green said in a recent interview with John Morgan and the MMA Underground (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I’m going to be changing my name, and I will no longer be Bobby Green. I’m changing my name to just King. No last name. Just one name. And so this is just the beginning of a new chapter for me.”
Bobby Green wanted to make the change years ago
For those worried this decision might be a rash one, born of sudden impulse, it turns out Green has been on this kick for a while now. The only reason he didn’t make the change sooner, to hear him tell it, is that he “was fighting so many cases with my baby mommas” over “child support and sh-t.” Under those circumstances, the courts wouldn’t allow him to switch up his moniker. Now that he’s apparently got that side of his life right, however, he can go ahead and leave Bobby behind him.
“I was fighting so many cases with my baby mommas, child support and sh-t like that. They told me, I think I spent like $1,000 or maybe $1,200 to change my name, and they were like, ‘Hey, no, you can’t do that bro, because you’ve got another case, and you’ve got another case,’ and everything, and they didn’t give me money back either,” Green said.
“They just took my money, so I was like, ‘F-ck.’ I just thought about it for years, and now here it is again, where now I’ve gotten cool with the women in my life and we’re all good, and so I’m just going to [change it]. Now I can do what I want to do and take care of these things.
“I’m just doing something different, like Kanye, like Prince,” he added. “I’m just going to be me, bro. I’m just different than everybody else that’s coming around this joint.”
Bobby Green set to face off against Jared Gordon
Free of his baby momma drama, Green is stepping into the middle of a whole different feud. While he’ll be looking at this Saturday as a chance at rejuvenation, for his opponent Jared Gordon it may be that Green is just a stepping stone to another fight. A rematch with Paddy Pimblett.
Gordon and Pimblett faced off in a mildly lackluster affair last December, at UFC 282, in Vegas. Despite a competitive first round and a grinding third for Gordon, ‘The Baddy’ walked away with a unanimous judges decision. The scorecards led to heavy backlash from fans and pundits alike.
“Yeah, he [Jared Gordon] got f-cked and that’s unfortunate,” UFC commentator Joe Rogan said of Pimblett’s decision win. “You know, I don’t like when someone gets by just because they’re famous and they have this big personality and everybody loves them.”
The criticism got so bad that it has even had Pimblett wanting to run the bout back again. The Liverpool-based fighter recently wished Gordon luck in his next bout, with the hope that he and ‘Flash’ could face off again sometime this winter after Pimblett recovers from surgery. For the moment, however, Gordon doesn’t sound like he’s that interested.
“If I thought I won a fight and I wanted to move on and upward, I wouldn’t be talking about Paddy Pimblett from my hospital bed,” Gordon explained during UFC Vegas 71 media day. The Kill Cliff FC talent went on to add that if he beats Green, fighting Pimblett would be a step backwards. “If they offer me something good, and money, I might think about it.”
UFC Vegas 71 goes down on April 22nd. The fight card is set to be headlined by a heavyweight clash between Sergei Pavlovich & Curtis Blaydes. A middleweight bout between Brad Tavares and Bruno Silva is planned for the co-main.
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