Dana White Mini-Series Part 1: Public Treatment of Fighters

  Dana White (Photo by Sherdog.com)

I am going to do a little mini-series on the man, the myth, the legend: Dana White. He is the face of the UFC to hardcore fans and the face of MMA to the casual fan. He decides the direction in where the sport goes. He controls the most powerful MMA organization in the world. He is the president and partial owner of the UFC and, with the help of the Fertitta brothers, resurrected the dying UFC brand and the sport of MMA in America as a whole. He is complex yet hides nearly nothing from the public. He is so unique and charismatic that people are drawn to him and he is held up as a super star in his own right. So, I will be peeling away the layers of Dana White and addressing each of these layers over the following months.

In our first segment we will tackle the way he handles fighters publicly. First off you all must know that I am a huge proponent for a Fighter’s Union. I think for our sport to go the long haul then our fighters need protection and have more power and say in their own careers. Dana White and Joe Silva (the matchmaker) decide on what happens to these athletes. They have no boundaries, rules or restrictions. If they wanted to they could vacate every title and fire all the current champions and never allow them back into the UFC. That will likely never happen but I think the fact that it is possible at all is scary and wrong.

So that being said, Dana White has complete control of the athletes’ careers. Therefore, when he speaks publicly about fighters, it could influence the public and change the public opinion about the fighters he is speaking about. You would think a man with that power would be careful and choose his words carefully but he does not and it is perplexing at times. I understand that his brashness and flamboyant attitude is what garners him attention and the ability to influence but everyone on earth needs boundaries; and Dana White might be one of the only men in America who publicly has no boundaries. He has said offensive homophobic slurs and swears more than anyone on the face of the earth with nothing more than a slap of the wrist.

However, in a way all of that is somewhat explainable because we are naturally selfish beings. We are born worrying about us and not so much about others.  So, being brash and offensive to others is not so much a worry but what happens when you bash your money makers? One equivalent is Barak Obama saying “I know my Vice President sucks. Biden is just awful but please vote for me. Give me financial support even though you don’t like what I’m putting out there”. Another could be Ralph Wilson, owner of the Buffalo Bills, bashing his players and saying they are bad people and boring to watch. Then expecting people to pay to watch them. It just does not make sense. And White does this constantly. He just did a healthy portion of that this week when Jon Jones turned down a chance to fight Chael Sonnen.

The quick history of what happened with UFC 151 is that Dan Henderson was to fight Jon Jones for the light heavyweight championship but injured his knee and had to pull out. Then Chael Sonnen offered to fight Jones but Jones, with the advice of his coach, decided to not take that fight on eight days notice. Now, Sonnen is a deadly fighter. He gave the best fighter in the world, Anderson Silva, a run for his money twice. To face Sonnen without a full fight camp in a dangerous thing to do, but on eight days is a big gamble. So, when Jones denied Sonnen the fight Dana decided to scrap the entire event. So UFC 151 is erased and everyone puts the blame on Jon Jones. Now this is where I have my issues. Dana White announced all of this over a phone conference call. Instead of defending his biggest money maker he decided to bash him and say horrible things about him: “Something that's never happened in UFC history. A guy who's a world champion and considered one of the pound-for-pound best turns down a fight.” Do you honestly think it is a good idea to make your youngest champion who seems to be in place to be champion for a long time, and your #1 PPV king for years to come, look like a coward. Instead you work some PR magic and say “It was just too much to ask of him on short notice.”  You do that even if his decision was selfish and harmful because you want money and stability in the long run.

But Dana White is a proud man and when men have roughly no humility they cannot handle blame. So, Dana projects his own mistakes onto Jones so that he has no blame himself. It does not take a whole lot of knowledge to understand that in this sport people get injured training all the time (too frequently actually). But with that understanding you need to put at least two fights that could be main events on each card; especially on a PPV card. Having Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron as your co-main event for UFC 151 comes with the understanding that if Jones or Henderson were to go down with an injury then you would have to find a fighter not of that card to take the place as main event. That is your fault Dana White not Jon Jones’ fault. If you didn’t have as many cards then maybe you could stock up. For example at UFC 152 (before Jones vs. Belfort was placed on that card) you had Benavidez vs. Johnson for the flyweight title as the main event and Bisping vs. Stann as co-main event. If the flyweight title fight was scrapped you could still go with Bisping vs. Stann. Yes, it would hurt the ticket sales and PPV buys but it could still work.

Jon Jones does not set the cards and Jon Jones is not the match maker. And to ask him to put his health, money and belt on the line when he is not fully prepared is a lot to ask. And when Jones said no to fighting Sonnen, then Dana White needed to suck it up, be humble and understand where he made mistakes. White should not project his anger onto Jones. Due to Dana projecting blame he also made other fighters angry at Jones when they should be mad at Dana.

Jones said this is response to the whole debacle:

“Dan Henderson got hurt, and the fight was canceled. I signed a contract a long time ago to fight Dan Henderson. That's what I studied for, and that's what I prepared myself for. To take a fight with a different opponent in which I would basically have three days of training before traveling and then starting to cut weight I just thought would be the dumbest idea ever. I wouldn't have been properly prepared. I definitely apologize to the other fighters on the card. I feel terrible, but it also wasn't my decision to cancel the whole card. I don't make those decisions. I apologize to the people that lost money on tickets and travel and things like that. I don't apologize for my decision, but I do apologize for the way it affected people. I hope people can understand I was just trying to do the best thing for my career. I'm moving forward. I'm continuing to work, and I'm working on transforming my body from great shape to phenomenal shape. My goal now is to beat Lyoto better than I did the first time. I want to be a better version of myself, and I'm looking forward to it.” (Quote from MMA Junkie)

But due to Dana White’s egotistical response fighters directed their anger at Jones. UFC welterweight Charlie Brenneman Tweeted: “@JonnyBones u can send my check to PO box 198. EH NJ. Rent is due the first, so preferably by then. Thanks @ufc”. Then he later tweeted “Me n @Rick_Story took a fight on 24 hrs notice!! Champ what?!?! @ufc”.

Now like I said before Brenneman’s anger is misplaced. But his example of his fight with Rick Story is not similar. Neither Story nor Brenneman had a belt on the line. Neither of them are the face of the UFC and expected to perform at a near perfect level. It was also not on a PPV or FOX card. Yes, they have to pay the bills just like Jones and they make less then Jones but Jones has way more pressure on him to perform well then they do. I’m sorry but it is not the same thing. Those fighters that tweeted want to stay on Dana White’s good side and would never bad mouth him out of fear of being cut (Fighter’s Union = Freedom of Speech).

Another example starts at UFC 97 and UFC 112 where middleweight champion Anderson Silva put on two very boring fights. Silva is easily the best fighter alive and has a big fan base in Brazil. When he put on those boring performances Dana White said awful things about him. Instead of saying “Well the guy he was facing is dangerous and Anderson was just off that night” and trying to save face. Dana instead points a spotlight on the situation and gives people an excuse not to buy the next Anderson Silva PPV.

My last example was the first FOX card which featured only one fight between, then, heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez who was defending his title against Junior dos Santos. Cain is a wrestler and did not take it to the ground and was knocked out in one minute. So, when they went back to the analysts Dana White was there. Instead of praising dos Santos and trying to build a star from this amazing performance, Dana White went off on Cain for fighting stupid and not taking it to the ground. What a wasted opportunity.

It just does not make financial sense to bad mouth your champions. Dana White needs to learn how to hold his tongue and swallow his pride otherwise it will eventually bite him in the butt.

Now, with all of this being said you all need to know I love Dana White. He is at his core a great human being. He gives when it is not necessary, and frequently, to fighters and regular people alike. I have no ill feelings toward him but I just think he could do a much better job representing his brand and his fighters. I met him once in Canada and he was a complete gentleman. He took his time with each fan and was great with the younger kids. I have much respect for Dana and in the following segments of this mini-series I will have a brighter opinion of him in certain aspects.

Let me know your opinions in the comment section.