A second bout nearly took place between the two as Stephens and Rodriguez met up at a hotel after the event.
“We were taking off, and he comes up all cordial giving like a thumbs up like, ‘Hey is everything OK?’ He comes up and shakes my hand. I thought he was trying to be a gentleman,” Stephens said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via Tristen Critchfield of Sherdog). “He starts talking s—t to me. I’m like, ‘Bro I’m not from karate school. I’m from the street. I’m here to compete. I’m here to fight. I’m here to kill you.’ So right away my mentality was ‘back the f—k up,’ so I shoved him. And his coaches, his dad, his parents and everybody are like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ I know his sister has footage. I was waiting for them to release that footage, but I guarantee they’re not gonna release it because he looked like a coward there. I thought he was trying to be a gentleman, but unfortunately that wasn’t it. He wants to talk…I don’t know Yair. He doesn’t know me. But I’m not like that. I’m not gonna [let] you talk s—t to me, especially after you eye poked me.”
From Stephens version of events, it would appear that Rodriguez was the instigator of the hotel incident.
However, a different version of the story was relayed by Rodriguez, saying that Stephens started the scuffle in the hotel.
"He pushed me like a little b----," Rodriguez said to ESPN. "And I just told him, you will live the rest of your life with that in your head ... if you could continue and didn't. Shame on you."
Stephens did say their was video of the incident, which has been released publicly and also allegedly captured by IndiscutidoLA:
In the above video, both Stephens and Rodriguez can briefly be seen getting physical with each other, while both also hurled homophobic slurs towards each other. The video ends with both fighters walking away from each other, while both promise that they will see each other soon.
