Below you’ll find a new interview with Dana White conducted earlier this week at a UFC 146: Dos Santos Vs Overeem press conference.
Check out the keynotes from the conversation and scroll down to watch the full interview courtesy of Fight Day.
– Dana is happy with how things are going with TUF: Live on FX so far and loves the new live format even if it’s produced a few glitches. He appears to hint that there may be some changes to the format for the debut episode next time around though.
– TUF: Brazil seems to also be going according to plan, with White indicating that the debut episode which was streamed free online for international viewers did good numbers. It will still air on Fuel TV at some point in the future, but a date has not been set yet.
– Talking about UFC 145’s headline fight, Dana’s heard Rashad Evans say that he knows how to beat Jon Jones, but he claims he never buys into the pre-fight hype and will wait to see how it plays out on the night.
– Dan Henderson will be the next to fight for the title against the winner of Jones Vs Evans, or if not then the winner of Anderson Silva Vs Chael Sonnen. At the end of the day White believes Hendo just wants a title shot one way or the other, and He’ll get it.
Henderson did turn down two other fights (believed to be Lil Nog and a ‘Shogun’ Rua’ rematch), and normally Dana doesn’t work like that with fighters, but he feels that Hendo has earned the right to sit out and wait for the fight he wants due to his recent performances.
– Moving on to UFC 146, White says that the decision to make it an all heavyweight main card just happened organically and wasn’t something they’d specifically planned for, although when it started to come together they really liked the idea.
– He has no fears that all heavyweight action will result in boring fights, pointing out that all the guys fighting on the card have been in exciting fights recently.
– White wouldn’t be surprised if the UFC 146 headliner between Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem hits the ground despite both fighter’s striking abilities. He says that if one of them gets hurt in the stand-up exchanges then they could well switch up their strategies and look for a takedown.
– The Demetrious Johnson vs Ian McCall flyweight semi-final rematch will headline UFC On FX 3.
– Regarding Chael Sonnen’s safety when he fights in Brazil – Dana believes the Brazilian people are getting a bad rap and the country isn’t as scary or dangerous as people portray it to be. He doesn’t think people in the country want to hurt Sonnen personally – they want to see Anderson Silva do it for them in the Octagon!
– He says Sonnen never had any problems with going to fight in Brazil either, and that he always shows up to fight whoever or wherever they ask him to.
