Dana White has an interesting relationship with the truth.
Jeremy Stephens Arrest Incident
Jeremy Stephens is a bad dude in the cage. He’s a worse dude in the parking lots of bars, where he and an accomplice are probably going to hit you from behind and nearly beat you to death. That thuggery came back to bite him in 2012 when he was arrested the night before UFC on FX 5, where he was scheduled to face Yves Edwards.
That, obviously, should’ve led to the cancellation of the fight. The dude was arrested for a vicious crime and even if he was found innocent, would he be good for a fight that very night? Obviously not, but Dana White was steadfast in saying Edwards vs. Stephens was a-go. He continued saying that the fight was on until the very end of the event despite the fact that everyone and their mother knew that the bout was off.
Photo by MMANYTT.com.
The Alexander Gustafsson Injury
UFC on Fuel TV 9 was the Alexander Gustafsson show. He was the on-paper next in line to face Jon Jones and he was set to headline a major show in Sweden against a respected veteran in Gegard Mousasi. Big money there, right? Yup! Until Gustafsson suffered a terrible cut in training on his eyelid, that is.
The doctors said he wouldn’t be able to fight. Gus said he wouldn’t be able to fight. His coaches said he wouldn’t be able to fight. Dana, though, said that the fight was still on. Did he believe it? Probably not, but he wanted to preserve those ticket sales for as long as possible.
Photo by Sherdog.com.
Ben Askren Doesn’t Want to Fight in the UFC
Remember when Ben Askren sat down with UFC officials about a contract offer? And how he didn’t get one, and immediately started calling them out for letting him walk? Well, according to Dana White all that means that Askren doesn’t want to fight in the UFC.
In reality the UFC didn’t sign Askren because of Askren’s frequent discussion of the UFC’s lax drug testing. This was before they implemented the USADA program and there was a very good chance that Askren could’ve taken the UFC welterweight title off of then-champion Johny Hendricks. An irreverent, truth-telling welterweight champion that crusades against PEDs was just a headache waiting to happen for the UFC.
Women Will Never Fight in the UFC
Dana White made it crystal clear that female fighters would never be competing inside the Octagon. In typical Dana fashion, he’s not one to mince his words. When a reporter asked him when we were going to see women fighting inside the cage, he responded “Never.” But apparently never isn’t such a long time after all, because after Dana White met Ronda Rousey, he knew he had a superstar on his hands, and the only way to promote her fights properly would be to bring her into the UFC after Zuffa took over Strikeforce, where Ronda was the current champion.
This is far from the worst example of Dana lying, in fact he could have been telling the truth at the time, and just changed his mind. It’s unlikely he was planning to have women fighting in the UFC when he said never, but it’s still not a very well thought out response, since women obviously fighting in the UFC now. We won’t hold this one against him, he came out and admitted that he was wrong. But the rest of these examples? Oh boy.
Dana White’s Hatred of GSP
“That’s the thing, nobody wants to do it. GSP would never move up to 185 to fight Anderson Silva. He wouldn’t do it.”
That’s Dana White ripping into the greatest fighter of all time and the biggest revenue generator in UFC history, Georges St-Pierre, as being the man who made sure that the biggest superfight of 2009, GSP vs. Anderson Silva, never happened. Seems straightforward, right? Well, obviously not.
Dana has been on a campaign against the former welterweight champ for some time now, and he tried to paint him as both a coward and as inferior to Conor McGregor in this interview. So why did GSP not fight Anderson Silva? Well, two reasons. First, because the UFC wouldn’t give him proper payment for it. Second, because Dana is the one that scrapped it when the time actually did come.
Photo by Sherdog.com.
Shogun Rua vs. Glover Teixeira
One of the best ways to quickly make a star in combat sports is to say “everyone’s scared of this guy.” We’ve seen it plenty of times in pro wrestling, where a big, strong heel backs away from promising young face and we’ve seen it in boxing when a guy like Canelo Alvarez runs and hides ever time he hears the letter G.
MMA isn’t an exception, and Dana White loves to say that everyone is scared of this hot new guy that they want to fast track to the title. That was the case with Glover Teixeira back in 2012 with Dana flat-out saying that he turned down a fight with Shogun Rua. Was it true? No. But it made people much more interested in Teixeira and that’s all that matters with Dana.
Photo by Sherdog.com.
Fedor Emelianenko’s Never Joining the UFC
According to Dana White, Fedor Emelianenko and his manager are idiots. They’re cowards. They’re scared of real competition. They’re probably PED users. On and on. The real reason that Emelianenko isn’t in the UFC, though, is that they’ve never been willing to pay him what he’s worth.
From Pride to Affliction to Strikeforce to M-1 to Rizin to Eurasia Fight Nights, there has always been another promotion willing to pay more than the UFC. That’s the reality of the situation. Dana just doesn’t want to man up and admit that the UFC is too cheap to give the fans what they want.
Dana White Defends Fighter That Put Gun in Wife’s Mouth
Dana White once said “you don’t bounce back from putting your hands on a woman”. Pulling a gun on her, though, is totally fine. Brazilian light heavyweight Thiago Silva was released from the UFC in 2014 after a SWAT standoff provoked by his pulling a gun on his estranged wife and her current boyfriend.
Naturally, this brought to light a history of dangerous behavior and violence perpetrated by the fighter. He was cut from the UFC, but was brought back when charges against Silva were dropped due to his wife fleeing the country. The rationale, according to Dana, was that he had information on the relationship that nobody, including the FBI, had. That didn’t include video footage of the incident, however, and when that hit the internet, Dana went full Roger Goodell. Silva was released shortly thereafter.
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