what a dumba$$

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief


Following a win over Antonio McKee at UFC 125 in Las Vegas on Saturday night, UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann made a comment in a post-fight interview with MMAFighting.com's Ariel Helwani that has gotten him attention from the government.

When asked by Helwani who he wanted to face next, Volkmann first named Clay Guida, but then switched to a bit of a loftier target. "[Barack] Obama. He's not too bright... Someone's got to knock some sense into that idiot."

The comments gained steam over the weekend, getting picked up by political blog The Huffington Post and numerous other non-sports sites, but on Tuesday it went to another level. Volkmann was visited and questioned by the Secret Service due to the comments on Tuesday, and he talked to MMAWeekly.com about that visit.

"It happened on Tuesday, I was coaching youth practice, and then two guys came up and one of the other coaches that was helping me out, they said there was a cop and another guy out there waiting for me,” Volkmann said. "I went out there and the guy introduced himself and said he was from the Secret Service and he wanted to ask me some questions about UFC 125 and my quote. He said there were people calling in to D.C. telling them that somebody, me, was threatening the President.”

This guy had the whole interview on a piece of paper and it had my picture and everything. He was like 'is this what you said?' and I said, 'yes it is.' He's like 'I want to let you know I'm a little embarrassed for coming here and doing this because obviously nothing happened.' He actually apologized for coming, but he had to come. He wanted to make sure I wasn't going to D.C to hurt the President. The thing is, I got home and I checked my e-mail and I had about 20 e-mails and one of them, one of ladies had actually contacted the FBI and the Secret Service, and she was telling me that she was going to do it."

Volkmann has won three straight fights since dropping to the lightweight division in the UFC. He's 12-2 overall, with his only career losses coming in the welterweight division to Paulo Thiago and Martin Kampmann.

Penick's Analysis: It was fairly obvious that the comments weren't meant as a threat to the President of the United States, but I suppose any comments like that - especially in any type of public forum like a video interview - are going to be addressed by the Secret Service. Still, that seems like an awful waste of travel time and money to send agents out to investigate something that could have been very easily determined by just watching the interview in the first place.