The Schmo, a.k.a Dave Schmulenson, revealed he’s not a fan of Ariel Helwani after allegedly being “big-timed” when they first met in 2018.
Before MMA became mainstream, Helwani paved the way for future journalists and media members. Nowadays, a handful of well-known personalities are present in the MMA media community, including The Schmo, who has compiled over 273,000 YouTube subscribers.
It turns out that The Schmo and Helwani don’t have a good relationship. During an episode of the Real Eyes Recognize Podcast, the orange glasses-wearing social media personality had this to say:
“I love everybody in the sport, but I don’t like him [Ariel Helwani]… He big-timed me when I tried to introduce myself to him in 2018, gave me a fake email address. We’ve just had kind of just never been on the right footing. Called him out to a charity grappling match, raise money, charity, and turned into charity basketball or whatever.”
He continued by saying:
“He won’t do anything that doesn’t help himself first is kind of what I noticed…What I feel like with his style, there’s an agenda. There’s obviously something he wants to get out of it. He needs to make himself look good, and sometimes that falls at the expense of the athletes. That’s where I feel a disconnect with what he does.”
Ariel Helwani has thousands and thousands of supporters worldwide. With that said, Schmulenson isn’t the first person to voice his issues for Helwani. Various fighters and MMA public figures have had problems with the Canadian-American journalist, including an ongoing situation with Jamahal Hill.
The Schmo says he can relate to Jamahal Hill’s frustration toward Ariel Helwani
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill has made several appearances on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. Earlier this month, ‘Sweet Dreams’ shared a YouTube video of him calling out Helwani for allegedly instigating a rivalry between him and Jiri Prochazka.
During the same appearance on the Real Eyes Recognize Podcast, The Schmo acknowledged his understanding of where Hill was coming from by saying:
“I can understand exactly how Jamahal [Hill] feels and relate to what Jamahal feels about how he’ll say something good but take these dirty shots at someone, these underlying undertones to it, and then spin it to, oh, you want to talk about it? Come back on my show, let’s hash it out, kumbaya, I’m Mr.Good Guy.”
Jamahal Hill last fought on January 21, defeating Glover Teixeira for the UFC light heavyweight title. Unfortunately, ‘Sweet Dreams’ vacated his throne after rupturing his Achilles. In the meantime, Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka are rumored to fight for the vacant 205-pound strap.