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Dana White: I’d handle the Tito/TUF situation on Twitter exactly the same way again and ‘don’t ask me [expletive] about The Ultimate Fighter. I can’t tell you. I will lie to you’
By Zach Arnold | June 11, 2010
In light of some of the Twitter issues lately, Dana said after the presser that he will not be censoring any UFC fighter on Twitter.
So, now we have an official statement from the UFC President in which he’s taking a somewhat libertarian approach to the whole issue of fighters saying stupid remarks on Twitter. I’m sure he has his reasons for it — once he starts censoring fighters, then people will complain about UFC becoming ‘too corporate.’ By the same token, it also allows UFC to absolve themselves of taking any responsibility for the dumb remarks fighters say online. After all, fighters are ‘independent contractors’ and not ’employees’… but ask Marcus Davis about that after he made the AIDS remark to Dan Hardy in March.
Probably the biggest factor in UFC’s ‘hands off’ policy is that the company doesn’t want to be everyone’s personal babysitter and spend time on things of that nature.
That’s the set-up for this interview transcript with Dana White talking about The Ultimate Fighter, coming back to Vancouver, and why he decided to give Chuck Liddell a second chance. I love how the phrase ‘lifestyle changes’ is used as such a generality.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH DANA WHITE’S INTERVIEW WITH MMAFIGHTING.COM.
ARIEL HELWANI: “Here’s the thing. We’ve traveled a very long road to get to this point, UFC 115. So I have a lot of questions about how we got here and I wanted to start at UFC 97 in Montreal, that was Chuck Liddell’s last fight in the Octagon. Why’s he still fighting?”
DANA WHITE: “Well, my big beef with Chuck Liddell was him changing his lifestyle, you know, and I didn’t know if he was willing to change his lifestyle and do the things he needed to do to still compete and you know, again I don’t want to sound condescending to him, but I’m proud of what he’s done. And the shape that he’s in, he hasn’t looked like this, he didn’t look like this when he 22 years old. He’s in phenomenal shape. He’s been taking this serious. He’s been dieting. He’s been doing all the right things and you know he’s claiming that he’s changed some of the things in his training regiment, too.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Did you have to sort of make a deal with him and say, ‘OK, you need to do this, this, this, and this and then I will let you fight again’?”
DANA WHITE: “No, you know, you got to understand, too, aside from the business side, this guy’s a friend of mine so I sat down and said, ‘What are you doing? Do you just don’t want to this? Because I don’t want to you to.’ You know and I said many times, we can make money off Chuck Liddell, we can put on Chuck Liddell fight and make money. I don’t want make that kind of money, that’s not the kind of money I want to make. I want to put on fights that I know guys are taking it serious and want to become world champions and the guys I know that aren’t going to get hurt, you know what I mean? Because if you don’t take this sport serious, you can get hurt in this sport. And he has more than proved to me that he wants to stick around and be a part of it and be a professional athlete.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “More to that point, you’ve obviously been a long-time boxing fan, right? And we’ve seen guys in boxing stick around a little too long and you said he’s your friend and you care about him, perhaps a little more than some of the other fighters because you do have that relationship. Does that come into play that you don’t want to see him actually get hurt and suffer some consequences later on?”
DANA WHITE: “No, absolutely not. That’s why, listen, in this sport done the right way if you take this sport serious, you train hard, you stay in great shape, you take care of your body, and then you go through the pre-fight medicals that we put you through, the doctors that we have on hand for the fight and you get treated properly after the fight? This is an absolutely 100% safe sport. So, I just, I want guys that are going to be in it, especially when you start to get to that certain age you know I want to know that you want to be here and that you’re going to take this thing serious.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Was it a little more challenging for you to promote this event because of what happened on TUF and you didn’t want to openly talk about it because you wanted TUF to sort of play out and Rich (Franklin) come in and replace Tito (Ortiz). Did that make things difficult for you?”
DANA WHITE: “No! I mean, that’s what great about reality television, what happens happens, you know. You can’t write scripts better than what happens in reality and the reason I wouldn’t talk about it is because it’s a reality show and you can’t talk about it, you know, and this ended up being a great season, one of the highest-rated season we’ve ever done. So, it was good.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “You caught a lot of flack for the way you handled the situation on Twitter after the news broke that Rich had replaced Tito. Do you regret the way you handled it?”
DANA WHITE: “I’d do it exactly the same again. Don’t ask me [expletive] about The Ultimate Fighter. I can’t tell you. And I will lie to you.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “OK, good to know. Why did you pick Rich Franklin as the late replacement?”
DANA WHITE: “You know, at the time I don’t remember what exactly went down and what was our thought process, but he was the first guy we went to. You know, Rich is in one of those places that Chuck’s in right now, you know, they both want to get back. He moved up from 85 up to 205, fought a catch fight with Vitor (Belfort) at 95 and then now he’s back at 205 where he’s done very well. Let me tell you what, Rich Franklin is a very highly underrated fighter, man, he’s a tough guy. Dan Henderson, who you know what’s gone on with us and Dan, Dan’s a tough durable guy who’s fought you know all the best guys in the world. After they fought that fight, the controversial fight in Ireland, some people thought you know Rich won and some people thought that Dan won. I can tell you this — Dan and I went straight from there to shoot the next season of The Ultimate Fighter and Dan Henderson was busted up, man, he was hurt. You know, Rich is very, very underrated.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “What’s your relationship like with Mirko Cro Cop these days?”
DANA WHITE: “I’ve always had a great relationship with Cro Cop. He’s you know he’s a tough guy and you know you can tell just by the way he talks, you can tell he’s uncomfortable about the way Pat Barry feels about him. It’s actually uncomfortable for him and you know he’s one of those men’s men kind of guys and you know but… easy to deal with, always had a good relationship with him, and I respect him very much.”
Yahoo Sports flashback: Mirko Cro Cop leaves UFC for DREAM after UFC 99 (one year ago)
ARIEL HELWANI: “How do you feel about what Pat Barry is saying? Do you feel as thought this is just some sort of mind game that he’s playing or do you think he’s just actually a really big fan of his?’
DANA WHITE: “Anybody who knows Pat Barry and has been around him, he’s a big kid. But I know Mirko isn’t you know taking this like you know he’s seen the film of Pat Barry and he sees how Pat Barry goes into fights. I think this is going to be a fun fight and again, my prediction for knockout of the night is in this night.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “A lot of Canadian fans are worried that this is the last time the UFC will come to Vancouver because of all the issues that you’ve had to face. Is that in fact true?”
DANA WHITE: “It’s so crazy. If that was the way, seriously now you know me, this isn’t a reality show. If you know me, if that was the way I felt I’d tell you that’s the way I felt. I’d say listen, it was tough to get in here, these guys made us jump through all these hoops, we’re never coming back here. It’s not the case. It’s been actually a great experience, all the people that we’ve worked with up here in Vancouver from the mayor on up and down has been fantastic, so listen… I understand that there’s going to be, you know, sometimes we’re going to have to do things for different places to make people feel comfortable about the sport. But I know every time we go somewhere, when we roll out of town on Sunday, we leave a positive experience behind. I know that. So, I never sweat it.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “The insurance rate, how high was it?”
DANA WHITE: “It was high”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Can you say how much it was?”
DANA WHITE: “It’s a big number.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Higher than usual, right?”
DANA WHITE: “Not even in the same universe. Yeah.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Would that deter you from coming back?”
DANA WHITE: “No, because I don’t think it’s going to happen to us next time we come.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Rumors online you have signed Jake Shields. Is that true?”
DANA WHITE: “It’s not true. We have not signed Jake Shields, yet.”
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
1) Okay, so the sport is “100% safe” but he bitched out Liddell’s camp for not wanting him to retire after the Shogun fight because….
2) This season was one of the highest rated? The numbers looked fairly average to me.
3) I love how Dana forgot about Cro Cop’s threats to go to DREAM after working without a contract already. This guys hyperbole with such a selective memory never fails to be amusing. If Ariel wasn’t such a hack he would have called him on that.
4) As for Twitter, it’s not worth the trouble of censoring it. The guys would just go make the controversial comments elsewhere. And it’s not like Dana has any credibility whatsoever telling people to censor themselves.
TUF 11 was the fifth highest rated season in he history of the show and excluding the Kimbo-effect (TUF 10), it was the highest rated season since TUF 3.
I can understand why you thought the numbers looked average though. A typical TUF season draws around a 1.1 rating and this season drew something like a 1.3 rating, so the absolute numbers don’t look all that different but the relative percentage bump is significant.
So, now we have an official statement from the UFC President in which he’s taking a somewhat libertarian approach to the whole issue of fighters saying stupid remarks on Twitter.
Makes sense. UFC fighters know exactly what will and will not get them into hot water. Dana’s giving those stupid enough to do so the rope to hang themselves. That way he doesn’t come off as the corporate monster who censors Twitter/Facebook, and can also be seen as the guy who ‘makes the right call’ by sacking/discipling the next fighter who wishes an STD-related death on their opponent.
Shaq got in trouble by the NBA for twittering. There is still issues on how to handle the new media.
Better than the cliche interview he gave on TSN last night before the Finals.