Pride veteran Phil Baroni has been arrested for murder in Mexico. According to local media the 46 year old admitted he had killed his girlfriend after a drunken argument in a hotel room in San Francisco, Nayarit.
Baroni fought six times for Pride in between two separate stints with the UFC. He also fought for Dream and ONE Championship and was a renowned trash talker.
The American’s final fight took place in Shanghai in 2019 and he subsequently announced he had retired from MMA. He appears to have moved to Mexico sometime last year.
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Disturbing details
A local newspaper has all the details of Baroni’s arrest. It appears he was the one who called the police, telling them his girlfriend was unresponsive after an argument which turned physical.
The disturbing details, translated from Spanish, were laid out by Tribuna de la Bahia,
Phil Baroni said that he was smoking marijuana and drinking beer in his room. He started arguing with his girlfriend because she revealed that she had had sex with another man.
He opened the shower and asked Paula (his girlfriend) to take a shower but the woman refused, so he took her by the arms and threw her into the shower. This caused her to hit her forehead and she slipped backwards, hitting her head again as she fell to the floor
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Fall from grace
According to the latest reports in Mexico the mixed martial artist has been charged with ‘feminicidio’ which means killing a woman in a hate crime. Baroni appears to have been behind bars ever since New Year’s Day when the crime was committed.
According to Mexico’s penal code anyone convicted of femicide can be jailed for 40 to 60 years. It is a dramatic fall from grace for Baroni who was regarded as one of the UFC’s most charismatic fighters during the promotion’s early days.
Known as the ‘New York Badass’ he was renowned for wearing leather jackets and sunglasses before and after fights and for trash talking opponents. But his results were less impressive with the New York native retiring with a record of 16-19.
