Dana White - A message to the cry babies

In the wake of another successful Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view President Dana White had some choice words for those who have openly criticised his organisation in recent months.

UFC 131 saw Junior Dos Santos take on Shane Carwin for the right to face heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez. A thoroughly dominant performance from the Brazilian Dos Santos left Carwin, a replacement for the ill stricken Brock Lesnar, blooded and battered. With a suspected broken nose following a barrage of punches in round one Carwin battled through the full three rounds but had no riposte for the superior stand-up of Dos Santos. With two judges scoring the fight 30-27, the other 30-26 Dos Santos extends his unbeaten record in the UFC to seven and his overall record to 13 and one.

With the heavyweight contest pencilled in for UFC 136 in Houston, Texas, Velasquez’s recovering from a shoulder injury permitting, Dana White moved quickly post-event to answer his and Zuffa’s critics.

With the issue of pay-per-view dominating in Britain following Amir Khan’s move to Television Company Primetime prompted by Sky’s plans to move his WBA light-welterweight title fight in April to Sky Sports 1 White hit out at his own critics. American boxing promoter Gary Shaw makes no secret of his dislike of the UFC’s pay-per-view policy, calling for the promotion company to give away more free fights. White in response to these criticisms answered via MMAfighting.com’s Ariel Helwani claiming that:

“Gary Shaw is a moron. This guy is going out and copying everything I say. He’s like ‘they put on too many pay-per-views and they don’t give away enough free fights’. What the hell are you talking about you moron? First of all, Gary Shaw, he’s done three fights this year and when I say that I mean three actual fights, fights he promoted himself and all three of them were on Showtime. Showtime is not free, we’ve done 11 fights this year and four of them were free on free television, actual free television, free cable, okay Gary you idiot. You’re so dumb I can’t even believe I’m answering your questions or rebutting what you said.”

Pretty scathing remarks from the UFC President and love him or hate him Dana White always shoots from the hip, often landing himself in trouble, but there is no doubting that he is a very clever business man. In March it was announced that Zuffa, the owners of the UFC, had successfully acquired rival mixed martial arts promotion Strikeforce. For those unfamiliar to mixed martial arts one must not confuse the sport of mixed martial arts with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Unfortunately for mixed martial arts unlike boxing there is no global governing body and therefore no world titles. The UFC and Strikeforce act as promotion companies in the same way that Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy and Bob Arum’s Top Rank do in boxing. The only difference is that the promoters in mixed martial arts have their own titles.

With Zuffa’s acquisition of Strikeforce those in the mixed martial arts world and boxing, namely Bob Arum have claimed a breaking of anti-trust laws due to the monopoly of mixed martial arts that it seems Zuffa are achieving. As expected White refutes claims but also had a few choice words for those na-sayers, especially Top Rank CEO Bob Arum.

“The other one, Bob Arum let me telling you something about Bob. First of all Bob Arum is copying, if you go to a Top Rank fight now they’re copying everything we do. Now Bob Arum is also the guy who’s out their crying ‘anti-trust, anti-trust’. Bob Arum, go back and look through the record books, in an interview he did he was laughing at the Fertitta’s for investing in this company, he was laughing at them basically saying ‘they’re idiots, they’re losing oodles and oodles of money’, now you’re crying anti-trust Bob? Bob, you weren’t smart enough to do this, you weren’t smart enough to do what we did to buy a company like this and basically change the fight industry forever and now you’re crying anti-trust, you guys sound like a bunch of cry babies.

“It’s not just boxing people, there are a lot of people poking around, a lot of people because this thing has been so successful. There are a lot of people who come after us and are taking shots at us and the reality is we took something that was absolutely dead and turned it around and turned it into this. It was done by investing a lot of money and Fertitta’s having the balls to stay behind this thing when it didn’t look like it was going to turn around and all these people now who talking shots at us and coming after us and doing what they are doing are the people who were laughing at us nine, ten years ago. We are the best at what we do, we’ve changed the fight business forever, we’re revolutionised it and all these other guys who weren’t smart enough to do it and didn’t see it want to cry about it now.”

After reading White’s remarks you can’t help but agree with some, if not all of what he is saying. It is very rich of Arum to be crying anti-trust at a company that he believed would fail upon its acquisition by Zuffa for $2 million in 2001. Five years later the UFC broke the pay-per-view industry’s all-time record for a single year of business, generating over $222,766,000 in revenue in 2006, surpassing both World Wrestling Entertainment and boxing. Now with the merger of World Extreme Cagefighting, Zuffa’s sister promotion, along with the purchase of Strikeforce the UFC is in a strong position to push on once more with PPV numbers set to increase further.

As a huge mixed martial arts fan and a person who is falling out of love with boxing as a result of its constant politics and mis-matching of opponents it is very easy for me to say this but sounds like sour grapes from Bob Arum. As I criticise Arum, praise must be heaped upon the Fertitta brothers, who between them own 81% of Zuffa, for sticking with a company that at the time of purchase had possibly the worst reputation in all of sport, if it could be called a sport back then. Now with the leadership of Dana White, a 9% shareholder, and the recruitment of the best talent in the world along with programming that reaches 130 countries world wide the UFC is now at the top of combat sport, although those in boxing hate to admit it. At the moment with the industry of mixed martial arts constantly evolving along with territories still yet of be entered perhaps Bob Arum, although he would never admit it, should have done what the Ferritas have done and risked losing ‘oodles and oodles of money’.

Love him or hate him Dana White has achieved expansion of a sport that hasn’t been seen in any other. Without the forward thinking of those at Zuffa the expansion we have seen in the past decade would have taken decades but thanks the progressive forward thinking of White MMA via UFC is a combat sport fans favourite for one main reason; the fans get what they want. Boxing take note, you have a lot to learn do a way with the politics or risk losing out forever.