Corey Anderson was on the cusp of greatness in the UFC.
In 2018/2019, the 35-year-old was building a nice hot streak for himself that was further cemented by an impressive TKO win over Johnny Walker. At that time, Anderson was making a case to challenge for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship.
But that never happened.
Instead, Anderson fought Jan Błachowicz and jumped ship over to Bellator MMA. Now, the former UFC star is going into further detail about the top brass refusing to give him a title shot. Apparently, Anderson wasn’t marketing himself enough, so that became a detriment to his UFC career.
“I never marketed myself,” Anderson told MMA Fighting. “I wasn’t one to be on social media all the time posting stuff like ‘I’m going to knock this guy out,’ posting sparring, beating guys or posting highlights of me training and fighting. I post family stuff. I’m a family man. I post stuff around my house with my wife and kids.
“I post stuff with fighting very rarely. I’m doing a little bit more of it now but especially now in the casual phase, it’s all about what your social media looks like.”
That all tied into Hunter Campbell himself blatantly telling Anderson that they can’t give him a title shot because he just has no social media.
“Hunter Campbell, when I left the UFC before the Johnny Walker fight, he had a conversation with me and he told me ‘We can’t give you a title fight, it’s 100 percent that you deserve a title fight, but we can’t give it to you because your social media isn’t there,’” Anderson revealed. “It’s not about who’s the best anymore. It’s about who’s going to put butts in the seats. The fans determine who’s the best fighter off who has the biggest social media [following].”
To Anderson, you don’t even have to be a good fighter to get a title shot these days. At least not in the UFC. Popularity is the most important thing to the bookers, with fighting credentials being a secondary thing.
“You don’t even have to be good at fighting anymore,” Anderson said. You’ve just got to have good social media.
“Guys are getting title fights like Derrick Lewis, he got a title fight because he went out there and said, ‘My balls are hot.’ He got 2.1 million followers overnight. Guess what they did? Well, right now he’s hot so we’re going to give him a title fight because his social media is booming.”
Popularity does play a factor into the way UFC books certain fighters. After all, CM Punk notably earned a pay-per-view spot in both of his bouts over former world champions. At the moment, this is simply a he said moment as it’s unknown if this conversation really went down, but Anderson clearly left the UFC because he was unhappy with his treatment and he doesn’t seem to have any desire returning despite Bellator MMA shutting down.