It might not come as a surprise to hear that Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White doesn’t intend to hold back his criticism of fighters if he feels it is warranted.
White is a unique character in that he is the public figurehead of the largest MMA promotion in the world but at times finds himself at loggerheads with fighters on a raft of issues including weight cutting, performance inside the Octagon or a fighter’s personal life.
In a recent interview with Fox News, White maintained that if his fighters put on bad performances, he will continue to call them out (via MMA Weekly):
“Well guess what? This isn’t the fun business,” White said. “You don’t get to go out and put on a terrible performance and act like you just did something incredible. The guys that I went after and the guys that I did that to, if you watched their performances and what happened that night, most of them deserved it.”
However controversial his methods may be, the UFC has flourished under White’s watch. In January 2001, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta bought the UFC for $2 million and installed White as its president. Over the next decade, the UFC grew into the predominant mixed martial arts promotion in the world, acquiring several of its primary competitors or simply forcing them out of business. White was instrumental in negotiating landmark deals between the UFC and Fox Sports, video game company EA Sports and ESPN. In 2016, the UFC was sold for $4 billion to a group led by Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG with White maintaining his position of president.
White stated recently that with the new ESPN deal the UFC is now worth $7 billion.