UFC 199 already made a strong claim to wildest MMA night of the year. The prelims were filled with wild violence, Dan Henderson finished Hector Lombard with an audacious head-kick-to-back-elbow combo, and Michael Bisping knocked out Luke Rockhold to win his first UFC title at the age of 37. Then we found out the UFC escorted Ariel Helwani, Esther Lin, and E. Casey Leydon out of the LA Forum and, according to Helwani, banned them for life.
Helwani hasn’t explicitly said what caused the UFC to take action, but the obvious inference is his report that the UFC and Brock Lesnar were close to finalizing a deal for the latter to fight at UFC 200, which spoiled the promotion’s surprise announcement on the UFC 199 PPV broadcast.