Yahoo Sports does the UFC’s dirty work

July 12, 2007 – 8:07 am by fightlinker

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Dana White doesn’t always tell the truth when he talks to the media. Often times he’ll say things to create a buzz. Other times he will say things to try and force negotiations through with fighters. In the case of telling Yahoo Sports the Wanderlei Silva fight is off, my bet is this is just the latest bit of hardballing that Dana White is doing to try and push the deal through. Let’s look at the two key bits in this article:

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is scrambling for a main event for the company’s planned Sept. 22 show at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., after light heayweight Wanderlei Silva told UFC president Dana White through an intermediary that he did not want to fight Chuck Liddell.

But White said Wednesday he was told by a member of Silva’s Chute Box team that Silva did not want to fight Liddell. White said the deadline for having the fight made was Wednesday.

Lets see: the fight is off because a ‘member’ of Silva’s Chute Boxe team said Silva didn’t want to fight Chuck. How beleivable does that sound, especially since Silva has confirmed the fight on his website? And how fucking lax is it that the writer Kevin Iole didn’t flex his journalistic muscles (or awaken his journalistic integrity) and actually contact someone from Chute Boxe himself to confirm Dana White’s statement?

Dana White is basically using the Marty McFly attack: Call the guy a chicken, and see what happens. I’m just literally amazed that Kevin Iole is so far up Dana’s ass that he’ll just pass along whatever he’s told without doing even a little bit of research. Of course, I guess that’s the price you gotta pay to get your stupid fucking face on the Countdown shows, huh Kevin?

So Kevin … what about the post on Wanderlei Silva’s site which says he was ready to fight? What about contacting Chute Boxe and confirming Dana White’s statements? How about you stop being a fucking buttboy for the UFC and actually do some real reporting?