Friend of our site


MMA Headlines


UFC HP


Bleacher Report


MMA Fighting


MMA Torch


MMA Weekly


Sherdog (News)


Sherdog (Articles)


Liver Kick


MMA Junkie


MMA Mania


MMA Ratings


Rating Fights


Yahoo MMA Blog


MMA Betting


Search this site



Latest Articles


News Corner


MMA Rising


Audio Corner


Oddscast


Sherdog Radio


Video Corner


Fight Hub


Special thanks to...

Link Rolodex

Site Index


To access our list of posting topics and archives, click here.

Friend of our site


Buy and sell MMA photos at MMA Prints

Site feedback


Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

Dana White says that Chael Sonnen has been punished harder than Mike Tyson

By Zach Arnold | May 25, 2011

Print Friendly and PDF

If the video doesn’t load for you here on the embed, click this link to go to the Heavy.com web site.

MEGAN OLIVI: “A lot of people have been talking about GSP & Nick Diaz possibly being coaches (on The Ultimate Fighter). But besides that, is that fight a done deal? Is that something you want to see happen?”

DANA WHITE: “That fight is not a done deal and I guarantee you that those two will not be coaches, not even close. All this stuff that’s out there about that fight and the meeting that we had here is all bullshit.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “All right, fair enough. So we will not be seeing that at UFC 140 in Montreal?”

DANA WHITE: “No.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “Okay. Now how are these hurdles that you have to go through to create fights between UFC guys and Strikeforce guys? Is it a difficult process if you would even want to?”

DANA WHITE: “Yeah, it’s all still a work in progress, I mean we don’t know, we don’t know how we’re working this whole thing out. Obviously, we’re still running Strikeforce fights and, you know, we have this deal with Showtime but we don’t know how we’re going to handle that type of a situation. Listen, we want to put on fights that people want to see but we got to figure out.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “A lot of people have been talking about your comments regarding Strikeforce when you said ‘we’ll see if we can keep Strikeforce alive.’ What exactly did you mean by that? Will it have the same fate as, say, the WEC?”

DANA WHITE: “I have no idea. I mean, obviously we have a deal with Showtime. We want to continue to put on fights, um… with Strikeforce. The question is, can we make it work? It has to make business sense. It didn’t make business sense for the old owners, we have to make sense of it.”

(Later on in interview…)

MEGAN OLIVI: “If Anthony Pettis defeats Clay Guida at The Ultimate Fighter finale, where does this leave him? Is he still next in the line and whoever wins Frankie (Edgar) or Gray (Maynard), he will get them?”

DANA WHITE: “Absolutely, no he’s definitely in line and the thing is for a guy like Pettis and I say this about guys all the time… bad things happen every day and people fall out and lots of things happen, but you have to stay active, you have to keep fighting. That kid jumped right in and took a tough fight against (Clay) Guida. It’s what you’ve got to do.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “With Frankie Edgar being injured, three other of your champions are also injured. How do you go about creating interim titles, if that’s something you want to do?”

DANA WHITE: “The only time we do an interim title is when we’re unsure how long a guy’s going to be out and a guy we don’t want to strip, you know, he’s got something unfortunate that happens to him… you know, we just don’t throw interim titles just because somebody broke their hand or something.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “A guy that has been talked about a lot is Jon Jones, who is also injured. What do you kind of think about that drama between him and Rashad (Evans)?”

DANA WHITE: “Yeah, um… you know, they went from not fighting each other because they were good friends to, you know, ready to fight each other anywhere they bump into each other. Funny how that turned around so quick. Heh heh.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “Do you think you’ll still make that fight, even if Rashad loses to Phil Davis?”

DANA WHITE: “I don’t know, we’ll see. To predict what we’ll do if this guy wins, if that guys loses, I never know. We gotta to see what happens.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “All right, let’s talk about Chael Sonnen. What’s his kind of status in the UFC right now?”

DANA WHITE: “I’m pretty bummed out about the Chael Sonnen thing and the way that the whole thing was handled. You know, this guy… I don’t know if there’s ever been a penalty laid down, I mean Tyson, I think when Tyson bit the ear, Tyson got a year. Um… it’s pretty crazy.”

MEGAN OLIVI: “You know, he said that you told him if he can’t licensed, he has to retire. Is there any truth to that?”

DANA WHITE: “Um… listen, it’s not that he’d have to retire, but right now was his opportunity. This kid had the opportunity to coach The Ultimate Fighter, he had the opportunity to get a big fight set up, should he win that fight… everybody knows what happened with Anderson Silva, this was a key moment in this kid’s career and me, personally, you know, you’ve heard me say it for the last almost 11 years, we always support whatever the athletic commission says… This kid got, this kid got it stuck to him, man. He paid his dues in every way shape and forum and, uh… I think he’s been treated a bit unfairly.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

12 Responses to “Dana White says that Chael Sonnen has been punished harder than Mike Tyson”

  1. Mark says:

    Heh, looks like they just caught Chael in another lie, since Dana denied telling him he’s forcing him to retire if he’s suspended (which makes no sense.) The guy must be a pathological liar who just can’t help himself.

    And why does Dana keep calling him a kid? Dana is 40 and Chael is 35. Must be because of his childish take on truthiness.

    But as I expected, he’s going to give him the Sherk treatment of “I support you, but I’m not going to do anything about it.”

    • Stel says:

      He calls him a kid because it endears sympathy, much needed by the many kids who are convicted of real estate fraud every year.

  2. Kalle says:

    Calling grown men, and fighters at that, “kids” is something I’ve always found to be fundamentally disrespectful. I doubt Dana means it that way but that’s the way it comes across to me.

  3. The Gaijin says:

    For a reputed boxing diehard, Dana sure doesn’t know his history:

    July 9, 1997 — The Nevada State Athletic Commission, in a unanimous voice vote, revoked Mike Tyson’s boxing license and fined him $3 million for biting Holyfield.

    [Over one year later]

    July 17, 1998 — Applied for a boxing license in New Jersey.

    July 29, 1998 — Appeared before the New Jersey Athletic Control Board to get a boxing license to resume his career.

    Aug. 13, 1998 — On the eve of a meeting of the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, Tyson’s advisers abruptly withdrew his application for a New Jersey boxing license.

    [Over 15 months later]

    Oct. 19, 1998 — The Nevada Athletic Commission voted 4-1 to restore Tyson’s boxing license, with the lone holdout commissioner James Nave.

    So Tyson was shelved for over 15 months, Sonnen’s suspension ends June 29, 2011 – less than 11 months after he was caught pissing hot in a title fight, committing perjury under oath at a commission hearing and generally making a mockery of the entire process. And he can re-apply as soon as the suspension’s up (http://mmajunkie.com/news/23676/csac-changes-mind-ufcs-chael-sonnen-free-to-apply-for-license-after-june-29.mma).

    Woe is Chael Sonnen, martyr of martyrs.

    • EJ says:

      That of course ignores that when Sonnen goes to see the CSAC again and he gets his license denied, he’ll be out another year making Dana’s statements true.

      This is one of the times where i’d like Dana to not be PC and call out the CSAC on their bs. He got the screwjob and everyone knows it, but because he made fun of Anderson apparently it’s ok.

      The fact that this continues to be ignored by the mma media and fans really is a huge black mark on the sport as a whole. I can’t wait until the CSAC decides to screw over someone who will actually get sympathy to see all of these same people turn around and catch up to something i’ve been screaming about for years now.

      • Zack says:

        Yep…he should just come out and say “if you don’t do what we want, you won’t end up with a cozy security job @ Station Casinos like Armando Garcia did.”

      • The Gaijin says:

        “He got the screwjob and everyone knows it, but because he made fun of Anderson apparently it’s ok.”

        Yes, this is clearly why. Not because of all the bullshit he pulled at the hearing with false submissions about permissions from the NSAC; conversations and verbal permissions from the director of the NSAC; a sham doctor’s testimony, etc. Especially given the fact that 99.9% of his under oath statements (re. TRT exemption) were refuted by Kizer and the NSAC themselves and then he publicly changed his story several times, but of course it was because he made fun of Anderson Silva.

        “I can’t wait until the CSAC decides to screw over someone who will actually get sympathy to see all of these same people turn around and catch up to something i’ve been screaming about for years now.”

        Yes it must have been so lonely out on that perilous limb you were on about the CSAC. No one was saying they were incompetent, ever, not even now – even after everyone and their dog called Armando Garcia a corrupt boob and openly laughed at the circuses with Sherk and James Toney. One day we’ll look back and see EJ, the guy who made such bold but ultimately unappreciated statements about the CSAC. Well, him and some idiotic youtube documentarian hanger-on of Sonnen.

        • EJ says:

          Sonnen was the one who pulled all that bs?, really it wasn’t the CSAC and their sham hearings that caused the entire debacle?. Again it’s incredible just how blind you and others are to what’s right in your face, still trying to make it all about Sonnen when it’s about the CSAC inept and corrupt behaviour.

          And also where are all of those people now, I don’t see them writting pieces about the CSAC now. I’ve been looking all over the place and all I see is everything they’ve done in this case being glossed over and excused. So yeah if me and some random mma chick are the only 2 on the frontlines of this that’s fine, i’m a patient guy because sooner or later they will pull this again and i’ll be here to call all of them out on it.

  4. Stel says:

    5.25.11 Dana… “This kid(sonnen) had the opportunity to coach The Ultimate Fighter, he had the opportunity to get a big fight set up”

    4.4.11 UFC president Dana White today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) no decisions have been made about the head-coaching slots for the show, which debuts in September on Spike TV.

    But White also said Sonnen “has a ton of problems” to deal with, which makes a rumored “TUF 14” coaching slot against Michael Bisping unlikely.

    So Sonnen wasn’t going to coach “tuf” to begin with, and Dana is trying to portray the csac as the villain even though being being licensed in Ca would not prevent him from being a coach on tuf. So its ultimately Dana’s decision but he is now blaming the csac.

    This is the same foul mouthed PRE$IDENT who cusses every other sentence claims Diaz needs to clean his act up a bit?
    Yet calls Sonnen, who has been convicted of real estate fraud and not disclosing his testosterone replacement to the csac. a “kid”.

    Further, regarding retiring fighters, Dana says Cro cop is a man, he can decide what to do. Whereas Liddell is a child who requires Dana to make those decisions for him.

    lying hypocrite.

  5. Stel says:

    Furthermore, tuf has a history of coaches not fighting after the show for whatever reasons and then they fight a year later. So, if the Dana wanted his kid on the tuf show, a delayed coach fight would have been par for the course. Doing so would also be a stick in the eye of the much despised csac.

  6. mma training says:

    Dana White clearly shows some sympathy for Chael Sonnen. Why would he boot Nate Marquardt from the UFC for failing the drug test for UFC on Versus 4?

Comments to Stel

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.
Anti-spam image