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Todd Martin interviews Dana White about The Ultimate Fighter
By Zach Arnold | December 4, 2007
Part I of the CBS Sports interview is here. One quote that stands out:
Dana White acknowledges that there were ongoing debates within UFC about whether to provide alcohol to the fighters. The company ultimately decided to leave alcohol in the house.
“Our philosophy was you can’t make the sport look bad, because these guys aren’t real UFC fighters,” White explains. “If we had Chuck and Randy getting drunk and acting like idiots that would be a whole different ballgame. But these guys wanted to be UFC fighters and hadn’t proven themselves yet.”
There’s this quote as well:
One other heavyweight with promise was Mike Whitehead. Whitehead didn’t look his best on the show, but his only UFC losses were to Evans and Jardine. UFC released him, and Whitehead responded by winning nine straight fights in other organizations.
Dana White doesn’t regret releasing Whitehead. “That was Mike Whitehead’s M.O.,” he says. “When he came onto the show, he was a world beater on the smaller shows. But on the big show, he couldn’t hang.”
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
so giving them all that hard alcohol has nothing to do with driving up ratings, producing crazy footage that they can use in the commercial campaigns for the season before it airs, and being able to say before every single season starts that “oh man, this is the craziest season ever! you have to watch!
Dana White is POS who needs to denigrate fighters in EVERY interview he gives. I would pay $100 for him to get in the Octagon with just one of the fighters he’s talked trash about and fight the old school NHB. Maybe he’d learn to shut his trap for once. Absolutely sickening individual.
Having alcohol in the house isn’t that bad… but what is bad is that the house is like a prison.
They can’t leave, they can’t read, they can’t talk to any of their friends or family, no tv, and no internet. There are cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms… so no jerking off off camera.
How degrading is that?
I think the show would be better if they showed fighters interacting with people and not just getting drunk and invading each others’ space.
That show makes me sick to my stomach.