Two weeks after a career-defining win, Daniel Rodriguez made a decision that would nearly cost him everything. It wasn’t a bad fight. It wasn’t a brutal knockout. It wasn’t even inside the cage. It was a bag of weed. Twenty-seven grams, to be exact. Under an ounce. That was enough to turn a rising UFC contender into a prisoner in Mexico for eight months. For the first time since his release, Rodriguez, speaking on the Ariel Helwani show earlier this week, recalled some of the details of the nightmarish ordeal. “I thought I was going to be there for a weekend,” Rodriguez said. “It turned into eight months.”
Andrew Carswell is a combat sports columnist and college writing professor, based in Las Vegas, NV, whose work examines the intersection of fighting, media, business, and culture. His commentary and analysis have been featured in various magazines, newspapers, and media outlets, including Yahoo! News, and USA TODAY. Blending journalistic insight and experience with a fan’s perspective, Carswell writes about the fight game as both a cultural phenomenon and a global business.
