dana white

Dana White chillin' and illin' with none other than Snoop Dog. The two have an interesting relationship - leading up to UFC 125, Dana paid up on a 20k bet with Snoop over the winner of the Lakers / Celtics playoff series. That video, plus the video the above gif was created from, after the jump.

Aside from the UFC announcing that they'd found a big enough carrot to lead Chuck Liddell into retirement, the most news coming out of the UFC 125 press conference came from Dana White's media scrum. Here's what he said about the possibility of Brock Lesnar appearing at Wrestlemania:

UFC president Dana White insists that the only appearance Lesnar will be making there would be as a fan. "Like row three, seat 16," White said. "Row three, seat 16, aisle two sounds good to me."

White reiterated that Lesnar is restricted under the terms of his contract from doing a guest spot for any pro wrestling promotion without the UFC's permission, and that permission is not coming anytime soon. Asked if he could discuss any developments in Lesnar's potential return to the octagon, White took a deep breath and took a drink of water before answering.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "We'll see what happens."

Where there's smoke, there's fire. The only question now is if this is a little fire or a big one like the voices always say I should start. He also explained why the UFC hooked up with ION for the UFC 125 prelims:

"Here's the thing: I got these fans chirping at me on Twitter and everywhere else about, 'Last time we couldn't see the prelims,'" White explained. "We have so many dates with Spike TV where we do certain events, whether it's Fight Nights or Ultimate Fighter Finales or UFC Prelims. Well, there's a gap here where there were no prelims on TV. I've got fans going crazy chirping and bitching at me, so I go out and cut a deal."

"Because this is a broadcast network – these guys are like CBS, NBC – I can deal with these guys in my contract," White said. "I go out, and I make this deal, and the fans are like, 'What's an ION? They don't have HD!' Too [expletive] bad. I got it done. They're on TV. They're available in over 100 million homes. I got you the prelims.

That's way too reasonable of an answer, goddamnit. How am I supposed to generate pageviews without some sexy drama between the UFC and Spike???

Remember after Brock's last fight how the Undertaker was waiting for him outside the cage ready to cut a promo for a hypothetical Wrestlemania match? Dana shot down the idea of Brock returning to the WWE before it got a chance to get too much media traction but unfortunately for him, he didn't squash the idea before Vince MacMahon managed to get a $ figure with seven figures across to Brock.

Now Dave Meltzer reports that Brock wants to do the one-off show. This is the same Brock that the UFC hasn't been able to get on the phone lately.

On the surface, it seems like there's a lot of opportunity to be had via this stupidity. Perhaps Dana can leverage permission to fight at Wrestlemania into a TUF gig from Brock, say some. Others think the UFC is having a hard enough time just getting Lesnar back into the cage, and a game of chicken could result in no Brock for Wrestlemania or the UFC.

Personally, I say fine by me. Dana didn't let the best fighter on the planet fight outside the organization, so why should a 4-2 wonder like Brock Lesnar get to play by different rules? Sure, wrasslin' isn't boxing, but in a way it's worse: not only does it blur the lines between MMA and fake fighting, it opens up the door for other guys on the roster to stage mini-rebellions of their own for whatever dumb but lucrative reasons happen to pop up.

Dana says he's all about team players, and Lesnar is definitely one of those. Unfortunately, he plays for Team Brock and everyone else can fuck off. Fortunately, Team Dana has a similar philosophy, and it's roster is made up of Dana plus the entire Zuffa legal team.

To sample, glance at or religiously read most MMA blogs is to partake in numerous breakdowns of UFC President Dana White.  Whether it's his politics, family life, affinity for the sport or psychological profile under the microscope, the online media can be routinely expected to be dissecting and hypothesizing about some part of White's psyche.  As a 10% owner of the most wildly successful MMA promotion in history (along with being amongst its most effective and recognizable proponents), the criticism and speculation aren't unwarranted.  It does, however, seem like the negative examples (Dana calls an anonymous source a "faggot", Dana says he'll cut Anderson Silva even if he keeps winning, Dana turned off Fedor with his crude language and demeanor) are far more often reverberated through the echo chamber than the positive ones (Dana pays Nam Phan his win bonus after the Garcia fight, Dana hooks up random fans with comped rooms and tickets).

I'd like to contribute this story from Middle Easy, regarding a thread on the Underground, in the positive column.  The following are the two relevant posts, with the latter coming from a frequent UG commenter known to be a UFC representative.

From: Ben Pittsley
Posted: 10 hours ago
Member Since: 1/6/10
Posts: 5

I recently visitied Tiger Muay Thai and had the experience of a lifetime, But this is not about me, this is about SAVING THE LIFE OF A 4yr OLD GIRL!!!!

I had the pleasure of training with Kru Nai and meeting his family....When I returned home I learned that his daughter needs a LIVER TRANSPLANT or will die....the doctors gave 4 weeks to live.....

Please donate and help save a life

Mr. DANA WHITE,
If you are a true ambassador for the sport.....PAY FOR THIS SURGERY!!!

Please help, no donation to small........the clock is ticking http://savetuptim.yolasite.com/ or contact TIGER MUAY THAI for details

Nai is the trainer in Roger Huerta's HL Video.....

STEP UP Mr. WHITE.....please save a life

 

*     *     *

From: saucylv33
Posted: 7 hours ago
Member Since: 8/14/02
Posts: 11085

 

Dana will pay for the remaining funds needed for the surgery.

It's way easier to bash Dana than to defend him.  An outspoken critic of the man is hailed by a solid chunk of our collective readership as speaking truth to power, placing the fighters and the sport ahead of this bald man whom makes a mark of anyone he can.  Someone supportive of White's vision of the sport is termed a Zuffa zombie, under the sway and influence of a carnival barker that couldn't fill Vince McMahon's suit.  I'm going to go ahead and argue that, as a human being, White is somewhere in the middle of the disparate opinions regarding him.  And for the record, the same can be said about those of us writing the opinions.

I have no idea how I got on Maximum Fighting Championship's mailing list, but I'm pretty glad I'm there. Every so often I get a gem delivered directly into my inbox, like the MFC press release accusing a fighter of owing child support. Now I just got some kind of editorial thing from the MFC's crazy owner, Mark Pavelich, accusing Dana White of messing with his sponsors:

I am disgusted by the way MMA clothing brands are buckling to “DW’s” handling of contracts regarding the sponsorship of specific fighters.

It’s almost comical – not on his part but on the part of these clothing companies. They cave in and pay his organization a great deal of money just to have the opportunity to sponsor fighters, who they then pay an individual fee to as well. What these clothing brands fail to understand is that the entire organization that “DW” runs is sponsored by a competing clothing company.

These other brands are paying to represent themselves, yet they will never get the brand recognition they are seeking since the company itself has what would be considered a title sponsorship with another clothing brand – probably the most-recognizable brand in the industry. You are competing in an uphill battle that you can never win.

Now “DW” has instructed these other clothing brands that they have to stop sponsoring other MMA events or they will not be allowed to sponsor fighters in his event – even after fully paying him for the right to sponsor and paying the fighters individually. He is collecting money by the armored truck full from these companies, and yet he’s still able to tell them where to spend the rest of their money at the same time. Has he or anyone in his company ever heard of something called “restraint of trade?”

There have been rumbles in the past that the UFC has actively engaged in killing sponsorship deals for other MMA companies but this is the first time a 'reputable' promoter has come out and accused the UFC of breaking competition laws. Still, it's no secret the UFC likes to crush it's competition and hear the lamentation of their women. So personally I think it's a great idea for Mark to poke them with a stick. I'm sure it will help a bunch.

The full email after the jump.

It looks like we weren't the only ones who felt like Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir III was an unnecessary fight being pushed for some easy PPV money. While Dana White thinks 'the Internet is stupid', he thinks the net's retarded 140-character nephew Twitter knows what's up, and Twitter told him no sir it don't like dat fight.

"That fight kind of makes sense," White said on Friday. "So, we'll see."

But since White made that statement, fans have taken to the Internet to express their displeasure in the potential fight. While the UFC president believes it's unwise to pay too much attention to Internet message boards, White says those that took the time to address him on his official Twitter account have made their feelings known loud and clear.

"I usually don't gauge things by the Internet; the internet is [expletive] stupid," White said. "My Twitter I do.

"On my Twitter, there are 1.2 million people that care about this thing and everything else, and you don't get the goofy [expletive] that you get on the Internet."

He's not lying - check out all the people who got in touch to tell him they thought the fight sucks. The complaints break down to two main reasons: numero uno, Frank Mir got smashed so smash-tastically the second time around that we already know how fight three will go. And secondly, we're just fucking sick of seeing Brock fight the same guy. A Mir trilogy would mean that statistically, Brock would be fighting the same guy in 43% of his UFC fights. When you've got a roster of over 30 heavyweights to choose from, that seems kinda sad.

I gotta hand it to Dana White. While he's willing to defend a shitty card right up until it happens, if it doesn't deliver you won't hear him pretending it did. Once again he got a less than inspired headlining fight and once again he wasn't afraid to completely torpedo it and the fighters responsible. From the press conference:

"When we come and we put these guys on a headliner to go after the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, and the main event looks like that? It's very disappointing," he said.

And here he is in a post-event media scrum really throwing Marquardt and his camp under the bus:

"Marquardt is such a talented guy, and what I'm seeing is stuff from the Greg Jackson camp," he said. "This camp continuously – when these guys fight, their corner is either telling them they're ahead or they're winning.

"I mean, Nate Marquardt sat here tonight and said that he thought he won the fight. Where the [expletive] is his corner? You go into the last round and you're getting outstruck by a wrestler, and you think you won the fight? And this is consistent with the Greg Jackson camp."

"You already blew a title shot once; you're in a fight for the title shot again in the third round, and you're not throwing any punches or kicks? It has nothing to do with pressure. You're ... professional, and you're going to go after it in the last round to get your title shot."

"Listen – you couldn't meet a nicer guy than Nate Marquardt," White said. "He's a great guy. Nice kid – choked tonight."

I suppose it's unfair to say Dana threw Marquardt under the bus when it was basically Nate who did it to himself. Chalk it up to another striker getting sucked into doing nothing but waiting for the shoot instead of ripping the head off the shooter.