UFC flyweight Jeff Molina was told he was "gonna burn in hell" after announcing he'd wear the promotion's Pride Month fight kit.
The Glory MMA standout revealed to his followers that he'd wear the kit ahead of his UFC Vegas 56 victory over Zhalgas Zhumagulov last Saturday.
Molina was flooded with a torrent of sickening abuse and bigotry for showing solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community.
But the 24-year-old didn't shy away from addressing the bigots, many of whom direct messaged him.
During an appearance on The MMA Hour, Molina said: “It was strange because I thought it was something so nonchalant, simple, minuscule.
“Like, dude, check out my shorts, there’s rainbow colouring on it, it’s just cool that the UFC is doing this for Pride Month.
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"Then I didn’t look at my phone for a couple of hours — I try not to be on my phone too much for fight week — I look at my phone and the comments are split.
"Actually, not really, the comments were pretty much all pretty hateful.
“There were a couple of narratives in the comments like, ‘The UFC is just doing this to exploit, it’s a business tactic, they’re doing this for money, they don’t really care. Blah blah blah.’
"The other parts were, ‘Man, you support gay people, you’re gonna burn in Hell.
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"Allah will make sure you burn in hell or God will make sure you burn in hell.’ I’m telling you there were dozens and dozens of these, like, ‘You should get cut from the UFC for supporting f******.’ There was a lot of those.
“I looked over to the DMs, my DMs on Twitter were about split with the love and hate.
"From the love side it was a lot of guys like, ‘Hey man, I didn’t know you rolled that way. I think you’re cute.’
"And then on the other side it was more of the same hateful, spiteful things, and I felt like I just had to address it.”
Molina had no intention of changing his fight kit – which the promotion introduced to help raise awareness for the LGBTQIA+ Center of Southern Nevada – once the abuse began.
He said: “If anything, I wanted to get a bigger vinyl after that. That thought didn’t even cross my mind.”
Showing support and solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community isn't something Molina wants praise for.
He said: “What’s weird is I feel like I’m being appreciated for something I shouldn’t be appreciated for, if that makes sense.
“And I’m not trying to backtrack on anything I said, I spoke 100 per cent from the heart. I meant exactly what I said.
"But it’s like being applauded for saying, ‘Murder is wrong.’ This should just be common: Rape is wrong. Racism is wrong.
"Being hateful towards someone for who they love is wrong. And who the f*** cares at the end of the day?
"That’s the only thing that makes me feel weird about this whole situation.
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“I know I have a platform as a fighter, fighting for the UFC, for the biggest organization in the world.
"But at the same time, I feel weird being appreciated for something that should just be f****** common decency. Just being a human being.”
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