Dana White trashing his own fighters has become a regular occurrence
UFC president Dana White has publicly criticised a lot of UFC fighters recently. Francis Ngannou, Yair Rodriguez, Tyron Woodley, Kamaru Usman and Mike Jackson are just a few of the fighters who have felt the full force of White’s acerbic tongue. When a fight isn’t as exciting as it was expected to be, White is sure to blast it.
Brendan Schaub calls it bullying. White sees it more as refreshing honesty, as he told Tony Robbins. Back in his day, promoters didn’t act like he does now.
“At the time that I started to come up, I think there was a shift in business,” he said. “My generation grew up watching these sports organsiations or other companies where a lawyer would come out and read a canned statement by the company and I think people were just tired of that. It’s not authentic and it comes off, I don’t know, just not genuine. People just don’t relate with that.”
Calling it like it is
White believes his style of promoting is one that is appreciated by the fans. Although, he admits that his comments haven’t always been well-received by his fighters.
“Or if I came out and you just saw a horrible fight, yet I’m trying to talk you into (how) you just saw a great fight. There were promotors that did that when I was growing up too. Listen, let’s just call it what it is. The fight sucked. That wasn’t our best showing. But, we’ll try to do better next time.”
“I’ve always been honest to the point where it’s caused me more trouble with my athletes than it has with sponsors and things like that. Nobody wants to sit there and hear the guy telling them, ‘Your fight just sucked,’ when they could get up and kick my ass if they wanted to. ‘Oh it sucked, huh? How’s this one?’ (laughs).”
During an appearance on the Fox News show OBJECTified with Harvey Levin, White gave a more callous reason.
“Well guess what? This isn’t the fun business. You don’t get to go out and just put on a terrible performance and act like you just did something incredible. The guys that I went after and the guys that I did that to, if you watch their performances and what happened that night, most of them deserved it.”
That last part is hugely debatable. Woodley comprehensively beat Demian Maia with a torn labrum. It may not have been the most exciting performance, but that injury certainly played a factor in the underwhelming showing.
