Dana White was in Calgary today for the UFC 149 pre-fight press conference, and afterwards he spoke to reporter Ariel Helwani about the big talking points leading into Saturday night’s event.
Check out the keynotes from their conversation below and scroll down to watch the video for yourselves courtesy of MMAfighting.com.
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– Dana says he’s looking forwards to Saturday’s show, and despite this being the most injury-ravaged event in recent times he claims the Calgary fans are excited to.
According to him it’s the ticket scalpers who are upset as they’ve not been doing good business in the lead-up to the fight.
– White sees the co-main event between Hector Lombard and Tim Boetsch as an exciting fight with real meaning in the middleweight division, while the winner of the headliner between Urijah Faber and Renan Barao will claim the interim 135lb title and will go on to fight the ‘real’ champion Dominick Cruz when he’s healthy.
– He won’t say exactly how many PPV’s UFC 148 did, but admits he’s disappointed that it didn’t break their all-time record, though he stresses that it was still a great number. These days he is focused on breaking records so that’s why he’s down about missing out on that one for the Silva Vs Sonnen II card.
– White concedes that if Barao runs through Faber then it’d be tough for ‘The California Kid’ to work his way back to another title shot.
– While White thinks many of the fighter’s on the UFC roster are pretty laid back and easy to talk to, he admits that Hector Lombard fits into the “mean and nasty” category.
– The UFC promises answers as to who’s fighting who in the middleweight division after Saturday’s event.
– White clarifies that as long as ZUFFA has a contract with Showtime, Strikeforce’s major fighters can’t sign for the UFC.
Lorenz Larkin got down on his hands and knees in the Strikeforce cage and begged Dana White for fighter bonuses in the promotion, but White says it’s a completely different business model there compared to in the UFC. He also points out that Strikeforce fighters are making really good money as it is.
