REPORT: Phil Baroni arrested for murdering girlfriend in Mexico

Did Phil Baroni get arrested for murder in Mexico?

On Tuesday afternoon rumors began to circulate on MMA Twitter that former UFC fighter Phil Baroni was arrested for murdering his girlfriend. The reports, coming out of Mexico, were sketchy and in Spanish but seemingly told the story of the fallen fighter.

According to tribunadelabahia.com.mx, someone named Phil was under investigation for the incident. According to sources, Mexican law prohibits last names and faces to be used until a person is found guilty of a crime.

The story, written in Spanish and then translated to English by Google says officers arrived at a Mexican hotel where they found a woman “lying naked on a bed covered with a sheet that showed multiple marks of beatings, bruises on her face and parts of her body, and no vital signs.”

The man, identified by the report as an American man from New York City, says that he and the woman were arguing about her sleeping with someone else and he “began to feel jealous and opened the shower telling her to go in to bathe” she reportedly refused. The man admits he “took her by the arms and threw her into the shower where she hit her head.”

He says he helped her from the shower and removed her clothes, then covered her with a sheet and left the room for “cigarettes and beer” and she was dead when he arrived back to the room.

There was also a photo circulating of a man with a blurred photo and a police officer.

At press time, there’s been no official confirmation that the man involved is Baroni. According to his recent Instagram, dated within the last week, he does appear to be in Mexico.

He retired from MMA in 2019. Baroni was allegedly fired from Bellator in 2014 after he showed support for Jonathan Koppenhaver (aka War Machine) after he was found guilty of several felony counts after raping and assaulting his ex-girlfriend Christy Mack and assaulting her boyfriend. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Baroni has also had a handful of run-ins with the law throughout the years including a 2007 arrest for “one felony count of Threatening a Public Servant and misdemeanor counts for Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Officers Without Violence” according to MMA Weekly at the time.