If you thought Dana White might disappear from the public eye for a
while after
being caught on camera slapping his wife on New Year’s Eve,
that won’t be the case.
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The UFC president fielded questions during UFC Fight Night 217
media day on Thursday, primarily focusing on the incident that has
dominated headlines for the past couple weeks. During that session,
White indicated that he won’t face punishment from the UFC or
parent company Endeavor for the altercation that saw both he and
his wife slap each other while on vacation in Cabo San Lucas,
Mexico. According to White, a more significant punishment is facing
the scorn and criticism of his actions that night for the years to
come.
“What should the repercussions be? You tell me. I take 30 days off?
How does that hurt me?” White said (video via MMAFighting.com)
“I told you guys when we were going through COVID, COVID could last
10 years, I could sit it out and — you know what I mean? It’s much
like COVID, actually. Me leaving hurts the company, hurts my
employees, hurts the fighters. It doesn’t hurt me. I could have
left in 2016. I don’t know. Do I need to reflect? No, I don’t need
to reflect … I’ve been against this. I’ve owned this. I’m telling
you that I’m wrong.
“But listen, we’ve had plenty of discussions internally, with Ari
[Emanuel], ESPN. Nobody’s happy. Nobody’s happy about this. Neither
am I. But it happened, and I have to deal with it. And what is my
punishment? Here’s my punishment: I’ve got to walk around for
however long I live — is it 10.4 years, or is it another 25 years —
and this is how I’m labeled now. My other punishment is that, I’m
sure a lot of people, whether it be media, fighters, friends,
acquaintances, who had respect for me, might not have respect for
me now.
“There’s a lot of things that I’m going to have to deal with for
the rest of my life that are way more of a punishment than what, I
take a 30-day, 60-day absence? That’s not a punishment to me. The
punishment is that I did it, and now I have to deal with it.”
While there have been calls for White to step down from his
position as UFC president — notably the
California Legislative Women’s Caucus — there have been
numerous others that have come to his defense. White was adamant
that nobody should be taking his side in this matter.
“It was obviously a horrible personal experience, and there’s no
excuses for it,” White said. “It’s something that I’m going to have
to deal with and live with for the rest of my life. And one thing
that I do want to clarify with this thing that I didn’t talk about
on TMZ, because I didn’t expect it and I didn’t it coming, is the
people that are defending me. There is never an excuse. I’m sure
you guys have read some of the same stuff that I’ve seen. There is
no defense for this, and people should not be defending me over
this thing, no matter what. All the criticism that I have received
this week is 100 percent warranted and will receive in the
future.”
When asked how he will recover from the incident, White was blunt
in his response.
“You don’t. You don’t bounce back from this. You don’t ever bounce
back from this,” White said. “For the rest of my life, like I said,
however long that is, people are going to label me that. I did it.
That’s it. I did it. … You don’t bounce back from it. You wake up
every day and try to be better than you were yesterday, and you
make sure that that never happens again. Whatever steps you’d have
to take to make sure that you’re never in that situation and that
never happens again, that’s what I need to do. And it’s a fact.
There’s a couple things in life that you don’t bounce back from,
and this is one of them. That’s a fact.”