Wikipedia Fact Check: Phil Davis, MMA Fighter And Tennis Star!??!
WIKIPEDIA FACT CHECK is back for our final season on Fightful — for now. We have some of the most interesting names in wrestling and MMA to answer questions about their totally change-able Wikipedia pages. Next up is Bellator star, and former champion “Mr. Wonderful” Phil Davis. Hear his story ahead of his fight tonight Bellator 231!
Fightful:
Now, as we wrap up I like to examine people’s Wikipedia page with them. Have you ever been to your own Wikipedia page?
Phil Davis:
Oh, goodness. I can’t think of the last time I’ve been to my Wikipedia page.
Fightful:
Well, Ben Henderson was probably the first person that I’d ever talk to that had 100% accuracy. Let’s look at a few things on yours, because there’s one thing that stuck out. You lettered in tennis?!
Phil Davis:
Oh, yeah. That’s real.
Fightful:
You lettered in tennis! I gotta know—are there photographs, are there videos? I wanna see this.
Phil Davis:
Yeah, yeah. You know, tennis was always my family’s game. We would play a lot of tennis on the weekends, go out and hit. My dad used to always take us out on Saturday mornings and I have two older brothers. And so we just always had a double game going on, you know? That was our thing. I was good.
Fightful:
I get the feeling that there ain’t a lot of people out there with an 80 inch reach playing tennis.
Phil Davis:
No. There’s most likely there’s not. And you know what? I could chase down every ball. You couldn’t drop shot me, you couldn’t make me run. I would go from sideline to sideline player. You couldn’t get it past me. You had to completely smoke me on it. You had to ace me on the shot. There had to be no chance I could get to it. My claim to tennis fame, I was playing this guy from Cedar Cliff, which is another large high school around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And this guy was wearing me out. I was running back and forth, and he caught me and I thought he was gonna go all the way to the ally and try to land a shot on the line. And he didn’t, he drilled it straight down the center, and I ran and hit a sabatweenie—if you’re familiar with that.
Fightful:
I am not.
Phil Davis:
Just imagine—mid-gallop, I jump and I hit the ball between my legs, alright? I hit the ball between my legs, so ball goes over and lands deep in his court and he just stopped and applauded. It was like, [“Thanks.” “That was nice.”] And then he killed me right after that.
Fightful:
It. also says you lettered in cross-country, which I can completely see that. I’m not surprised. When was the last time you played tennis? This was something I had no idea about.
Phil Davis:
Ooh, man. My family still loves to play; we’ve been talking about getting out recently to play. I don’t even have a racket here in California any more. I’d either have to buy a new a new racket or bring my racket out from Pennsylvania.
Fightful:
Some of these are pretty easily verifiable. 6’2?
Phil Davis:
Yep. (TRUE)
Fightful:
Some of those are off. September 25th, 1984—your birthdate?
Phil Davis:
Yep. (TRUE)
Fightful:
And then it says you began wrestling when you were in the 8th grade?
Phil Davis:
7th grade. Ha-ha! (FALSE)
Fightful:
Oh! We got you, Wikipedia! That’s why you can’t cite this stuff on a college paper.
Phil Davis:
Mmhm. Exactly.
Fightful:
And that you finished with a wrestling record of 116-20.
Phil Davis:
Is that high school or college?
Fightful:
You know, I should probably look at that. Let’s see—
Phil Davis:
I can tell you that high school and college is about the same. (TRUE)
Fightful:
116-20 at Penn State, and 112-17. Man, those were remarkably similar.
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR, WIKIPEDIA. Check out some of our previous editions!
Vince Russo
EC3
The Pope/Elijah Burke
Chael Sonnen
“The Hurricane” Shane Helms
Muhammad Hassan
Colt Cabana
Jack Swagger/Jake Hager
Michael McDonald
Frankie Kazarian
Sonjay Dutt
