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Dana White’s curious admission about Mirko Cro Cop
By Zach Arnold | August 7, 2008
Read this item about what Dana White said in regards to the motives of UFC signing Mirko Cro Cop.
Maybe White is telling his version of the truth as he sees it. Who knows?
What’s interesting about the story is the timeline. Remember, PRIDE lost their Fuji TV deal in June of ’06. They ran a show on 7/1 in Saitama and then another show at Saitama Super Arena in September of ’06 (where Mirko beat Wanderlei Silva & Josh Barnett in one night). At that point, we already knew that DSE was bleeding cash heavily to put on shows. Ken Imai, Mirko’s agent, found himself painted in a real corner. There was no way at the time that he was going to be able to do business with K-1 because he burned that bridge with Kazuyoshi Ishii. (Ishii and Imai were very close at one time, but Imai ‘betrayed’ Ishii and that relationship soured around the time of the corporate tax evasion scandal.) With PRIDE losing money hand-over-fist and the writing being seen on the proverbial wall, Imai didn’t have much negotiating leverage at all in terms of his future in the MMA business. White may have felt that signing Cro Cop was the final nail in the coffin to force a sale of the PRIDE assets, but it was Imai and Mirko who fled to UFC because that was (in my view) the only steady play for big money left for Mirko at the time.
The one comment White made that was incredibly stupid was this one:
“It wasn’t like we brought Cro Cop in and thought he was going to take over the heavyweight division or anything. I think that’s what the fans thought—the hardcore fans who really knew a lot about PRIDE—but it was a business move to kill PRIDE.”
No one, in our view, with a straight face could possibly believe this coming out of Dana White’s mouth.
Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 46 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Fair enough, in many respects it worked.
Where is Dana’s competition now?
A clothing company with over the hil fighters….
True their is more too it than just buying Mirko and it falling apart, but it started the ball rolling, and the promises fell apart and Pride died due to the UFC letting it essentially.
I mean its a million dollar industry, its what I would expect, the comment is clearly said with hindsight as no doubt he wanted Mirko to take over the HW division and justify his paycheck, but as a throw away remark it works and kinda has some truth to it.
MJC
If you think that quote is curious, how about this one? Dana White is now apparently a doctor and he has medically determined that Quinton Jackson’s car colliding with Holli Griggs’ car did not cause her miscarriage:
“That one is out there like, ‘He hit her and she lost her baby,’ ” White said. “It was a week later. He knocked her mirror off her car. Rampage said, and he’ll tell you when you talk to him, ‘I care about everybody. I care about all life. I would never hurt anybody.’”
Oh this is getting too good.
Im surprised Dana and the UFC are so publicly standing by Rampage, while on one had its admirable they haven’t left him out to dry, it can’t be a good move P.R wise for the company.
Ivan, while I think Rampage should be held accountable for his actions…I don’t think there is anyway to prove the lady’s miscarriage was a by-product of getting sideswiped..especially with it happening like 2 weeks afterwards…plus she is close to 40 yrs old were miscarriages just naturally happen more often.
MJC_123 Says:
“Where is Dana’s competition now?
A clothing company with over the hil fighters….”
Hahahaha, what a joke. Please take Dana White’s testicles out of your mouth.
Sorry to go all sherdog on you, but the blatant exaggeration is just unreal. Fedor, Arlovski, Barnett, Sylvia, Aleks Emelianenko… That is 5 out of the top 10 CURRENT heavyweights in the world, according to most publications.
If 5 out of the top 10 fighters in any weight class (not to mention top-10 fighters in other weight classes) is over the hill, then you are dyslexic.
[…] White’s curious admission about CroCop Article By Zach Arnold Settle down nuthuggers, this isn’t a hate Dana thread – I just thought it was interesting. […]
This isn’t that big of a deal. This was pre-purchase, so the fact that they wanted to ‘kill’ PRIDE to the point where they could buy it isn’t a surprise.
If this was a thread in a forum, I would say “100+ pages” due to the whole Pride vs. UFC debate that just won’t seem to die.
If you check out the trackback (comment #6), the first line of that forum post is “Settle down nuthuggers, this isn’t a hate Dana Thread…” LOL
It’s common business practice to steal from the competition. It happens in the Telecommunications industry where we have fewer nuthuggers, but enough controversy to keep things moving.
Zach, Dana’s comment about their reason for bringing Cro Cop in wasn’t stupid. It was a face-saving comment. Cro Cop turned out to be a bust, and the UFC overpaid him. Obviously, many fans know that the UFC had high hopes for CC, but there are a sizable number of fans who don’t realize how dominant CC was considered in PRIDE. Dana’s comments are directed toward the second group of fans.
What is he going to say? “We completely lost our investment in CC because he didn’t meet expectations.”? That’s not how any promoters talk.
The Dana-bashing is getting old. I was actually more of a PRIDE fan when PRIDE was around, but I give Dana and the Fertittas a lot of credit for still being around when MOST other MMA promotions at that level have folded or are folding. Dana, for all his foulmouthed arrogance and bombastic demeanor, knows what he’s doing.
Pride existed when the UFC signed CroCop. They signed one of their competitor’s most popular fighter. This would, in essence, hasten the demise of Pride.
Of course, they were also hoping that CroCop would dominate and help them invade Europe.
However, I don’t think his statement was much of a stretch at all, even if it isn’t the entire truth.
Kelvin— I didn’t say that the car accident definitely caused her miscarriage. I’m not her doctor, so I don’t know what the health of her baby was shortly before the accident and immediately after the accident. Neither is Dana White. He doesn’t “know” why she lost her baby, nor do any of us.
The line in the next paragraph, “Now he’s in a situation where somebody’s trying to civil sue him and make some money. Absolutely not. Absolutely not” may be even more offensive. So not only does Dana White know that this woman losing her baby is unrelated to her car accident, but he also knows that she is just a money-grubber looking to make an easy buck off of the real victim here… Quinton Jackson. To talk so disrespectfully about a woman who just lost her baby through no fault of her own may be a new low.
Could it be conceivable that Dana White is privy to more information that you? You have less facts than Dana White, who’s talking to Jackson, been to the police station, and most likely seen the police report.
As a fellow person with the capacity for thinking, if I were to be presented with facts like this:
#1 The only damage from the car was a broken side mirror
#2 The woman lost her baby after two weeks and not immediately
#3 The woman is 38
I would not be so inclined to accuse anyone of murder of an unborn fetus.
Now, I don’t have all the facts, so I can’t say that is true. I’m also not going to jump to conclusion and be all indignant at Dana White. You don’t have to believe him, but you shouldn’t also think that Dana is a lying bastard either. Unless, of course if you’re already predisposed to not like him.
Just so ya’ll know, there is significantly more damage to Ms. Griggs’ Escalade than a broken side mirror. The rear windows are shattered, the rear driver side is crunched, pushing the bumper into the rear tire, and the entire left side of the car is crunched, with a huge driver side door (where she was sitting) pushed in enough to nearly touch her seat. Not a total wreck, but way more than just a broken mirror.
On the video right before that quote Dana White says signing Cro Cop was a business move to “buy” Pride. He was talking about how they had been trying to buy Pride for a long time and DSE kept stringing Zuffa along, they signed Cro Cop to try and force DSE to finally sell Pride. It’s pretty obvious by the video what he is talking about but that site pulled the one quote out of context.
Am I missing something? This proves absolutely nothing. Of course he was trying to kill Pride when it was alive. Jesus, some people can’t read.
Don King said a number of things back during Mike Tyson’s rape trial. Guess what? Dude got convicted. I could care less what some fight promoter has to say about whether or not a fighter he’s promotion is guilty of a crime, much less a felony. Dana’s gonna spin whatever happened in such a way that makes people think Rampage is totally innocent that way he can successfully push through Rampage/Wandy III or Rampage/Forrest II. Good example: “The mirror only got tore off.”
Dana White is equivalent to Don King? Mike Tyson’s rape is equivalent to Rampage’s hit and run?
Has this world gone mad?
Dana White is a fight promoter, so yeah, he’s an equivalent to a Don King or Bob Arum. If Rampage ends up in jail or losing millions of dollars because its determined that the miscarriage is his fault, well, yeah. I’d say there’s some moral equivalency there.
Yes, you’re right. Dana White cheated and stole from fighters, evaded the IRS, dealt with organized crime, and committed murder.
And Jackson is obviously an ear biting, lunatic rapist.
Gosh, thats a dumb ass thing to say, and is a long line of quotes that makes me wonder how long Fertitta will let White near an open white. But this is sound-byte journalism…it only looks bad if you’re giving only 2 seconds of thought to the story. Kill is used in so many different contexts in slang: I went to a club and killed my drink, then the DJ killed his set, afterwards, two guys were killing each other outside until the cops came, etc.
Don King and Bob Arum have never been convicted of tax evasion, last I checked. Nor do you see a whole lot of successful lawsuits against them. Organized crime and the Fertittas? Well.
Jackson, on the other hand, beat a kid into a coma because he wanted to use a phone and may have inadvertently killed a child after deciding to run from the cops. Not exactly the best person in the world.
He doesn’t know for sure, and I don’t know for sure. As the promoter of the fighter who may or may not be responsible for the death of that woman’s baby, the right thing to do would be to keep your mouth shut and not be a classless blowhard, accusing a woman who just lost her baby of being a money-grubber.
The only quotes we have to go on at this point are based on statements made by the woman’s doctor:
“Griggs was unavailable for comment Friday. Her fiance, Bill Krebs, said doctors were immediately concerned when they noticed a significant loss of fluid in Griggs’ womb after the accident. Days before the crash, the couple had visited the doctor for an ultrasound, and Griggs was told she “had enough fluid for three babies,” Krebs said. She was pregnant with a boy.
Griggs was sent to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian after the accident, CHP officials said. Krebs said he and Griggs were then sent to pregnancy specialists at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Anaheim, where doctors noticed the problem.”
The link for that quote is http://dailypilot.com/articles/2008/08/01/topstory/dpt-jacksonfolo080208.txt
Wow… Now he’s killed a child? Hot damn! Proven guilty in a court of law, according to D Cap!
Rampage Jackson, in defending himself from an assailant who hit him first, is now branded a criminal, no different from convicted rapist Mike Tyson.
Tell how you really feel about the Dana White and the UFC, D Cap?
He may have killed the unborn child. He definitely beat the kid down in junior college, was arrested, charged, and convicted of assault. I guess its okay to brutalize someone as long as you don’t rape them.
You’re still making the point that self defense is equivalent to rape?
What self defense? Rampage wasn’t defending himself running from the police and smashing into cars, nor was he acting in self defense when he caught his assault conviction. Or do you feel the proper etiquette for phone use is to beat someone until they lie unconscious in a pool of their own blood with the reciever when you need to make a call? Continue on, cyph.
His assailant attacked him first with the phone. He defended himself. That’s self-defense. He didn’t stop when he should have, that’s his conviction.
Oh, I see. So because someone took a swipe with the phone, Rampage could have committed manslaughter and it would have been justified. You know, Don King was owed money…..
>>Am I missing something? This proves absolutely nothing. Of course he was trying to kill Pride when it was alive. Jesus, some people can’t read.
>>
Yes, I believe you are missing something. They paid Cro Cop a lot of money just for some silly act of vengeance? Dana White makes mistakes all the time and then makes up some awful cover story when things don’t go his way. He wanted to offer Fedor an insane contract, and then when Fedor declined it was all, “Fedor isn’t good anyway, we never wanted him!” When people talked about Wanderlei Silva he’d downplay Silva, then when Silva came into the fold Dana in interviews was like a little kid at Christmas who just got a Wii.
I don’t know, internet posturing is ridic, don’t you agree, Mikey?
Dana killed PRIDE so bad, he paid a bunch of dudes millions for what ended up being nothing and watched them go and build a new promotion with most of the same guys. I really can’t wait to hear the spin for that one of these days.
MJC_123 Says:
“Fair enough, in many respects it worked.
Where is Dana’s competition now?
A clothing company with over the hil fighters….”
This type of garbage belongs on Sherdog. This poster is either mentally deficient, or wrote this just to piss people off.
The truth is that Dana White DID think CroCop would take over the HW division. Of course he did – how could he not?
No one saw the Gonzaga KO coming – NO ONE. Dana thought CC would roll through GG, and move into a big money title fight with Randy Couture.
For the record, Don King has been successfully sued by several different fighters (including Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson), to the tune of $20Million+.
Well, Mirko’s contract included no win bonuses, so that may be a piece of evidence pointing to both parties thinking he might be washed up and that his success was not necessarily guaranteed.
White’s statement is plausible enough. It certainly wasn’t a move to prop Pride up.
Clearly it’s not true that he bought Cro Cop just as a plan to take Pride down. But the linked site made it seem as if this was dispositive about whether they wanted to kill Pride once they got it. It proves no such thing, and will mean nothing for the lawsuit.
Its utterly childish to parade around quotes as proof of “hypocrisy.” It reminds me of when morons wondered if Rampage would get the same punishment as Jesse Taylor. If not, you know, it would be hypocrisy. I’d love to find one president of any business on earth that would dole out similar punishments for similar transgressions if one was made by a janitor, the other by a highly productive worker. Hypocrisy is how you make money.
Dana’s a president of a company and a promoter, he will lie and spin as much as possible to make his company look good. Does Dana make a lot of mistakes? I guess, he also does a lot better than the new promoters that can’t run 3 shows without going under and disappointing their legions of followers that hoped they’d be the one to take Dana down. He’s running an enormously profitable sports league, clearly any mistakes are small in comparison to that success. What he said today about Holli Griggs was pretty stupid, but I figure in the end it will just be ammo for retards to do anti-Dana rants and meaningless beyond that.
For the record, Don King has been successfully sued by several different fighters (including Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson), to the tune of $20Million+.
They were settled out of court.
Well, Mirko’s contract included no win bonuses, so that may be a piece of evidence pointing to both parties thinking he might be washed up and that his success was not necessarily guaranteed.
Mirko’s guaranteed money was off the charts for the UFC’s pay scale. Really now, you think a fighter would prefer win bonuses to guaranteed money?
There is something wrong with this guy. But at least Quinton Jackson is now in good hands.
When you pay that many millions to people who sue you, I think you can say those are successful lawsuits.
I noticed that neither Jackson nor White seemed to mention words like “apology”, “sorry”, “wrong” or something like that when discussing the fact that Jackson endangered other people’s lives (and possibly caused a woman to lose her child).
Of course fighters prefer guaranteed money. That’s why Tim Sylvia got $800,000 in guaranteed money to “fight” Fedor instead of showing some confidence in himself and taking an honest $500/500 payday.
Of course, that fight was probably destined to not go in the direction of him winning by hook or by crook. Most likely by crook.
I am suspicious when any fighter gets paid a flat fee instead of a win bonus, because the industry standard is to pay a win bonus. It always feels like there is something wrong when none of the compensation is on the line as a result of the fight.
If a fighter is getting guaranteed cash, all that means is that the figther’s agent and the promoter reached a mutual agreement.
The agreement being, most likely, that the presence of the fighter – win or lose – will bring in X number of PPV buys and dollars at the gate.
Obviously the UFC felt that CroCop was worth paying a cflat fee based on his marketability, or they would have not bothered with him. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
When you pay that many millions to people who sue you, I think you can say those are successful lawsuits.
How many millions did Ali get again? You should check that. As for Tyson and his lawsuit, oh, he got a few bills. Not enough to cover his debts though and somewhere between 1/10th and 1/15th of the money he did seek.
I am suspicious when any fighter gets paid a flat fee instead of a win bonus, because the industry standard is to pay a win bonus.
The “industry standard”? Wow, given how long MMA has been around, that sure is a meaningful statement. If you’re a big name fighter and you’re worth the money, not going for guaranteed money is stupid. It has nothing to do with self confidence and everything to do with your management reminding you of how guys like Anthony Johnson have been jobbed out by ridiculous reffing or what happens when a fight goes to the cards and it leaves your hands.
>>I noticed that neither Jackson nor White seemed to mention words like “apology”, “sorry”, “wrong” or something like that when discussing the fact that Jackson endangered other people’s lives (and possibly caused a woman to lose her child).>>>
Curiously enough, the same can be said for people discussing this stuff on the net. It is astounding. I don’t care if Rampage maintains it isn’t his fault, it would be classy to sa he is sorry for her loss. I mean, a woman lost her unborn child, regardless of MMA Bloggers thinking she is a gold digger, yanno?