Kevin Lee explains his side of sparring footage knockdown; says training partner has been banned

UFC veteran Kevin Lee has addressed the viral video clip of him getting knocked down while sparring at Kill Cliff FC.

While Lee (20-8) still doesn’t know who is behind posting the footage to social media, he decided to address the situation in a selfie-style video to clear the air about what happened from his perspective.

“Alright, let me just address this once and leave it at that,” Lee started in a video posted to Instagram. “A lot of people been calling, and first of all, I’m fine. This is martial arts training. I’ve been training martial arts for 15 years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people get knocked out, submitted, arms broken, cut up – this is what we do. This is what happens into the gym.

“Whoever posted that video is a f*cking rat, a scumbag, a weasel – all of that. No honor, no respect, none of it. There’s certain codes that go on in these gyms that you just don’t break. Showing just a small clip like that for the world to see is one of them.”

“The Motown Phenom” included portions of the video to help explain what happened just before he was caught with a hooking punch that severely wobbled him. He said he had no intention on landing a flying knee that preceded the punch, but more importantly, he didn’t even know he was being filmed.

“And second, one of the hardest things to learn in martial arts is self-control,” Lee said. “So, anybody who has ever trained and knows what they looking at, can look at that clip and see I’m not trying to land the knee. That was deep into the session, and I don’t think my partner was liking the way things was going.

“He was a little hyped up and pissed off, but I wasn’t trying to land that knee. If you look at it, you can tell if I wanted to land the knee, I would have jumped into him. Instead, I jumped straight up and put the knee right in front of his face. When I landed, he threw a shot, and it’s all good. I wasn’t trippin’. This happened a minute ago. You can ask anybody; I wasn’t trippin’ on it. But what does piss me off is posting it without full context, without the full round in there and just leaving people who don’t know what the f*ck they looking at to make up their own stories.”

Lee, 32, said he received word that the training partner in the video who’s identity has still not been confirmed publicly, has been banned from the gym after the video clip was posted to social media.

“Anybody who’s ever trained with me, or watch me train, knows my only goal in any training session is to make my training partner better, that’s it,” Lee said. “We professionals, and this is what we do to entertain the world and provide for our family. I hold that code to the utmost respect.”

Lee was recently to the Global Fight League (GFL) roster and was drafted to Team New York, which is coached by Ray Longo. The 19-fight UFC veteran fought for the vacant interim lightweight title in 2017. He retired and returned to action, most recently competing in a submission victory over Thaigo Oliveira at Lights Out Championship 17 in September.

Despite the drama surrounding the viral video, Lee says it will be business as usual going forward.

“I’m not changing the way that I train because of this, and I’m gonna try to maintain my integrity, even though it pissed me the f*ck off, I ain’t gonna lie to you.”

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This news first appeared on MMA Junkie. Read the original article.