Mark Hunt will be fighting fellow top 15 heavyweight Alistair Overeem this Saturday Night at UFC 209.
While Hunt says he has never turned down a fight before, the Samoan insists that the UFC is forcing him to fight this time around.
“I was forced to be here,” Hunt told MMA Junkie. “I was told, ‘If you don’t take this fight it’s against your contract.’ Why should my family suffer and miss out on my hard work? They deserve to have the better things in life because I’ve gotten beaten up to get here, so why should they miss out? I haven’t done nothing wrong here, so why should I be the outsider here? The other guy is the guy that cheated. All these other guys that cheat should be put on a pedestal like, ‘That guy’s a cheat. He shouldn’t be here.'”
It's worth mentioning that Hunt rejected several opponents due to his reticence to fight without them putting up their fight purse if they failed drug tests. The heavyweight title challenger is current in the midst of a lawsuit against the UFC.
No matter what legal issues he has against the UFC right now, Hunt didn’t want to be in this spot.
“I didn’t want to be in this position,” Hunt said. “They gave me no choice. What am I supposed to do? Keep coming to work and fighting steroid cheaters. How would you feel going to work losing to guys? And it is losing. Because if you do lose, you lose. You don’t get no benefit from it. This is supposed to be the best fighters in the world, not the best cheaters in the world or the best guys that can hide it with doctors. The reason I’ve done this is because it’s been a pattern of things that happened.”
UFC 209 takes place on Saturday, March 4 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson headlining. Fightful will be providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
