UFC welterweight contender Daniel Rodriguez has revealed harrowing details of the eight months he spent incarcerated in a Tijuana prison following a marijuana arrest.
Rodriguez, the No. 15-ranked UFC welterweight, was taken into custody after crossing the border into Mexico with 27 grams of marijuana in his backpack. He said that when he arrived at the prison, his fighting career was immediately recognized. “When I got there, one of the guards recognized me, and you know, I’m in handcuffs and shit — and he was like, ‘Yo, can I get a picture?’” Rodriguez said.
“And I’m like, ‘What!?!?’ So the other inmates were looking around like, ‘Who is this guy?’ because the guard was trying to explain who I was and if I was famous. It was the worst jail, and I’ve been in a lot of jails,” he added.
Rodriguez said a guard initially tried to get him to pay $7,000 to move into a better cell. He ultimately paid $3,000 to share a cell with a cartel leader and acted as his bodyguard for eight months. “The guards came and pulled me out and put me into a completely different section — the third floor in the second building,” Rodriguez recalled, describing how he was escorted behind a curtain and introduced to the cartel boss who “runs it here” and had “all the amenities you can think of.”
Two months after his release, Rodriguez is scheduled for his first UFC main event, taking on Uros Medic at UFC Belgrade, following a prior win over Kevin Holland at UFC 319 and a post-fight celebration in San Diego that preceded his trip toward Tijuana.
