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Don't feel bad for laughing at Junior Albini's diaper look – he's doing the same thing

You might be disappointed to find out that wearing a Reebok diaper to the octagon wasn’t part of some genius marketing plot by Junior Albini – also known as “Baby.”

The peculiar look sported by the Brazilian in his UFC Fight Night 120 loss to former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski (26-15 MMA, 15-9 UFC), Albini (14-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) said, was the result of an attempt to make his shorts more comfortable. And considering there was another man inside the cage to worry about, one can kind of understand that.

But Albini is not oblivious to the comical effect that his attire had. How could he be, anyway, when the Internet is there to serve him constant reminders?

“People were sending my messages, making fun of me,” Albini told Brazil’s Combate.com. “I thought it was funny, too, in the fight: ‘It does look like a diaper.’ My manager was laughing. We send each other some of the memes and laugh a lot. I was a good sport about it. I have to be. If I get pissed at this, I’m going to get pissed at everything.”

Albini had worn regular shorts in his octagon debut – in which he demolished Timothy Johnson in the first round to earn a “Performance of the Night” bonus. But they kept riding up and bothering him. The weight fluctuations between the time Albini arrived in the U.S. for fight week and the time he actually got to fight made the outfit an annoyance in the leg area.

“The guy wants to kill me across the cage, and I’m going to worry about this, about shorts?” Albini said. “So I did that big diaper, but I had no idea it was going to look like that. Next time, I talked to my manager, I’m going to keep my weight stable and ask Reebok for (stretch material) so I can get accustomed to them. I don’t like (the shorts) tight.

“Next time I’m going to wear Lycras, no more shorts like these. Fighting in a diaper is rough.”

In any case, Albini doesn’t place the blame for the loss on his wardrobe. Rather, the 26-year-old up-and-comer said the pressure of being a favorite against Arlovksi, helped by the fact he was heavier than usual this time around, may have gotten to him.

“The main factor was that I ended up feeling pressured to win, and to win with a good knockout,” Albini said. “I believe I should have loosened up more. (I should have) made a different game and stayed more relaxed, as in a normal fight. The knockout ended up not happening, and I was a bit frustrated.”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 120, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

The Blue Corner is MMAjunkie‘s official blog and is edited by Mike Bohn.

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