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Dana White sounds off on Showtime and Strikeforce on CBS 11/7 show
By Zach Arnold | September 18, 2009
Some quotes from Steve Cofield’s interview with Dana White (video here):
“Let me tell ya, like I said, I’ve got no beef with Strikeforce. The reality is, they’re a small regional fucking company, you know, they’re a small little promotion company, they’ve been putting on these little fights up in San Jose where they make money. They put on these fights, Scott (Coker) throws some money into his pocket, he’s got a good little business going, he’s not you know Strikeforce is not competition for us. They’re not our competitor. You know? I don’t like Showtime. I don’t like ’em. That’s the only reason I even fuck around with them and do what I do because I want to kick them in their balls.”
“It doesn’t matter, no. Dude, how many fucking how many shows have to come and go before you guys are going to go, ‘yeah’?”
Network TV for Strikeforce? “IFL was on network TV. Elite XC was on network TV. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.”
“Before I was dealing with all these idiots coming up left and right and everything else, now if you look at all the competition that has tried to come after us in the last five years, do you think Strikeforce and Showtime are the ones that are going to fucking make a difference? Showtime has been second-rate at everything they’ve ever done. When you talk to these guys who are the executives of Showtime, they are the most cocky, arrogant, pompous dicks you’ve ever met in your life, OK? Now, if they were like that and had something to be cocky and arrogant about, that would be one thing. They’re second-rate in television, they’ve been second-rate in sports, boxing and whatever, and they’re going to be second-rate at Mixed Martial Arts, too. We’re going to kick Showtime’s ass. OK? Period.”
Why CBS back in MMA? “I think CBS wants to be in the business. I think they want to be in the business and we haven’t been able to come to a deal, so.”
“With the right deal, we’d do it. We haven’t had the right deal, yet.”
“You think Strikeforce is getting the right deal with CBS? You think they’re making money, you know? And do you think people, fucking Fedor, Fedor’s not even fighting the best guys in the world. You know? Fans want to see this guy fight the best guys in the world and he’s not doing it. Who gives a shit?”
“See, everybody wants to think that it’s, c’mon, I’ve done deals with all the best fighters in the world, you know, the biggest names, Brock Lesnar from the WWE, huge star, I mean I’ve done deals with all these guys but we couldn’t come to a deal with this guy? When I walked in wanting to do that deal…”
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dana’s Tourette’s Syndrome knows no bounds. Can you imagine a CNBC or Fox Business Network executive interview with that many f bombs?
Hey Zach,
Typical Dana White. You have to love how Zuffa goes out of their way to counter program against a regional company that’s as insignificant as Strikeforce.
“You think Strikeforce is getting the right deal with CBS? You think they’re making money, you know? And do you think people, fucking Fedor, Fedor’s not even fighting the best guys in the world. You know? Fans want to see this guy fight the best guys in the world and he’s not doing it. Who gives a shit?”
True…Fedor should sign with the UFC if he wants to fight the best heavyweights. Like their last card where it was a guy Fedor beat twice vs a guy with no wins in 2 years. Or their next big event: a guy who is 4-1 vs a guy who has never gone out of the first round and has one borderline top ten win.
I agree with Zack. Anyone who questions Fedor should be flogged. Fedor is the man because his next fight is against a guy who beat a bunch of nobodies and has one win over a borderline top ten guy who lost his last fight to Fedor. Fedor also beat up on two UFC washouts in the fights before that (including one who lost to the guy Zack pointed out hasn’t won a fight in two years and that guy beat Fedor’s last opponent twice), Fedor also beat up a string of James Bond villains in Japan and beat Matt Lindland who won a medal in the Olympics in less convincing fashion than Vitor Belfort did. So yeah, everyone who thinks Fedor should be in UFC is a jerk.
I love all the half thought out smartass arguments by the crowd that hates UFC. They have to go so far out on a limb and use so little logic that they can’t dare fact check themselves.
How old is Dana White?
Who said I hate UFC? I bet I’ve paid to attend more events live than you have and been watching and supporting longer than you. I’m just not a fan of all the disparaging comments towards classy fighters like Fedor. I’m not a fan of what Strikeforce said about Buentello or Baroni either, for the record.
Fluyid: I think he’s late 30’s to early 40s. Comes across pretty juvenile sometimes though, don’t he?
If you paid to watch UFC 1 or 2 live on PPV you’ve been following the sport longer than I have. You may have paid to attend more events than I have but I can just about guarantee I’ve been to more UFC’s. Anyways, enough of that pissing contest.
Why do you make fun of UFC’s main event at 102? That was a fun fight fans have wanted to see for years. Fedor vs Rogers is a fight that nobody has been clamoring to see. It may be the most interesting matchup that Strikeforce can make. But can you legitimately say it is the fight you want to see Fedor take the most?
Anyone who uses his 4-1 record as an insult against Brock just makes a fool of themselves. What is the point of that logic? Broch has 5 pro MMA fights. 4 of them are against top competition. Would you be more impressed if he were 10-1 or 15-1 and 6-11 of those guys were the bums everyone beats on the way up? Look at most fighters’ records. Their early fights are all against meaningless competition. Brock jumped right in the deep end of the pool after his first fight. Brock has fought better competition than Fedor has in his past 4 fights.
Typical Dana White bashing going on. Outside of calling Strikeforce a regional promotion (which they are no longer)…. He was spot on with a lot of things he said.
The most important part of the interview is that Dana White even admitted that they have negotiated with CBS.
He admitted that last year. I forget when, but I recall during one of his rants against Elite (probably before their first CBS show) he said CBS came to UFC first but they basically made them the same offer Elite got. I’m sure other networks have as well. I cannot imagine as bad off as NBC is they wouldn’t investigate a MMA show.
I think it’s pretty clear when you read between the lines what the UFC wants in a network is to be in the position of power. Spike executives would be jumping off of bridges if the UFC left them since they’re their cash cow. HBO and CBS are doing just fine without UFC so they’re in the position of power, and Dana can’t stand that. So he’s perfectly happy being the king of PPV and Spike’s major draw so when he wants something they’ll bend over backwards for him.
jl – don’t worry, the crap that comes out of the mouths of CNBC and Fox Business News is far more offensive when you think of real life impact.
White needs attention and acts like a petulant child all of the time. I can’t believe any major company would employ an idiotic bridge burner and have them somehow involved in contract negotiations.
I like UFC a lot more when Dana White shuts the hell up and the focus is on the fights not the insane swear filled rants that seem to make up every Dana White interview.
I think giving up some of the power ($$$$) is worth it 4 times a year. I really do. Even if they operate the show at a slight loss, they need to look at it as a great way to keep the sport in the public’s eye and to intrigue new fans to purchase the monthly PPV’s. It would be absolutely stupid to sign an EliteXC TV deal, or even a Strikeforce one. I believe SF is getting some money for the shows but not that much.
Strikeforce really can’t make the transition to PPV because they don’t have the stars to put that together. Not to mention Fedor has no interesting fights coming up if he beats Rogers. They not only aren’t getting much money from CBS, but they are giving away their very best fights for free.
With the UFC, they can still give away a few really good fights per year…. And still have a bunch for PPV. Especially since they will likely be up to 7 weight divisions if they get on Network TV.
The question really does come down too…. How much if the UFC going to be willing to settle for in order to take a deal with SF. That, and if SF is really successful, they might have to take the average deal just to hurt the competition…..
Loretta Hunt reported on the Fight Network on November 20th, 2007 the UFC and CBS were in negotiations. At the UFC 82 press conference Dana admitted it, but said he’d rather not be on network TV than take a deal he wasn’t totally happy with.
I predict if this were to happen they’d dump the WEC (or its weightclasses under the UFC banner) on Spike and give the Fight Nights and Euro shows to network TV. They’d hopefully toss Spike a bone and give them good shows when they need to counter program someone because it would be wise to keep Spike happy as an insurance policy.
I think NBC would be a perfect fit for the UFC. They’re desperate enough for ratings to promote them in prime time. And at the very least they could take a Saturday Night Main Event timeslot once a month.
If NBC was interested in Euro cards and UFNs at the prices CBS is offering Strikeforce, I guarantee you the UFC would be on NBC. But they aren’t. What network would want second rate fights on? Or no option on week delayed replay of PPVs? They’re not being offered that, so no interest.
The UFC can sell a lot of events as being big, so I don’t think that is the problem.
From the network’s point of view….
1) Can they make a profit off of advertising for the event?
2) Will they hurt their other sports business if they give out a higher payday.
Those are the two main restriction….
Anyone have knowledge on what Spike get sor commercials during UFN? I kept seeing the same ads run over and over. I worked in TV years back and that’s usually a sign of advertisers getting a good deal.
What’s ultimately going to make or break MMA on network TV is how much advertisers will pay for the shows inventory. CBS sold all the inventory on the Elite shows. I heard that it was sold cheap though. Not sure if that was accurate or not.
The ads on the Elite shows on CBS had to be cheap, and they had trouble selling them.
How many Edor returns commercials were there the last time Elite was on CBS? That deal was done like 10 days before the card, and that card was planned for a while.
Is it common for there to be that many open ad spots 10 days out? Even if it’s common, the number of the Affliction ads caused me to think that they had trouble.
Dana’s 40 this year. Old enough not to give a shit what you think of him 🙂
Back five or ten years when NBC was riding high, they made the decision to go big on the Olympics and basically back off any of the other high priced sports licenses. Made sense at the time, then they reversed their decision and jumped back in for a part of the NFL. Now they’re in the worst of both worlds, overpaying for sports that many people consider equivalent to reality television, and they’re facing new competition in primetime now that the basic cable networks are starting to produce first run shows that are legitimate competitors to the broadcast networks.