Following last night’s UFC 158 event in Montreal, UFC President Dana White spoke to the media about the night’s big talking points.
Read our keynotes below and scroll down to watch the media scrum for yourselves.
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– It was announced last night that the next season of TUF will feature Ronda Rousey as a coach. Dana isn’t worried about the fact that Rousey is getting so much exposure at this stage in her career, and points out that it’ll be quite a long time before we actually see her in the octagon again due to the filming of the show.
– White says they are doing a male & female edition of TUF because there aren’t enough good women fighters out there yet to do a female only version.
– He doesn’t feel sad for how things panned out for Diaz because he knows that he’ll be paid very well for this fight.
What he does feel bad about is that Diaz admitted at the presser that he’s never paid taxes in his life. He hopes someone looks out for him and ensures that he pays what he’s due so he doesn’t end up with nothing.
– He says “we’ll see what happens” when asked if he’d still keep Diaz in the UFC.
– Apparently Nate Diaz was mouthing off at Mike Ricci backstage, but White didn’t hear about it so assumes it wasn’t anything too serious.
– Diaz’s camp were reported to be unhappy with GSP’s hand wrapping backstage before the fight, but Dana White thinks that was purely gamesmanship on their part, an old boxing trick to try to unsettle the champion.
– White feels GSP did what he needed to do to win the fight.
– He’s full of praise for the Hendricks Vs Condit fight, describing it as “unbelievable” and a true mixed martial arts fight with all kinds of action on the feet and on the floor.
– Diaz indicated he’d be interested in fighting Anderson Silva, but White is not entertaining that idea.
– It’s still to be decided if The Ultimate Fighter 18 will air on FX or FOX Sports 1.
– The UFC already has enough women for the TUF show, but will also be doing try-outs in Las Vegas too.
– White was impressed with Jordan Mein’s debut win over Dan Miller and is generally enjoying how hungry the former Strikeforce fighters are to do well.
– White felt Bobby Voelker won his fight against Patrick Cote even though the judges scored it the other way. It wasn’t clear enough that he’d pay him a win bonus though.
– While White has said that Mark Hunt would get a title shot if he KO’s Junior Dos Santos, he acknowledges that Fabricio Werdum is also in the title mix as well and could all depend on timing as to who gets the next shot.
– According to the UFC president tonight’s show is trending towards being on part with UFC 148’s Silva Vs Sonnen rematch in terms of PPV buys. That event was reported to have done in the region of 925,000 buys.
– White confirms that in the past WWE President Vince McMahon did suggest that they have a fight either in the UFC or WWE. White couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not and says you never know where you stand with him. As for whether he’d take that fight, White says he can barely get on a treadmill right now, let alone a fight (presumably due to his continued issues with Meneires Disease).
– The UFC have “set up shop” in India and are working on a potential TUF series and live event though nothing’s confirmed yet.
– Ellenberger impressed White, particularly with the fact that he stood and traded with Marquardt rather than just attempting to wrestle him.
– White admits he’s not sure how having men and women in the TUF house is going to play out since they’ve never done it before.
– He is hoping Johny Hendricks left hand isn’t broken and doesn’t want to think about what will happen if he’s out for an extended period as he’s supposed to be the next in line for GSP’s title.
– White’s keen to bring GSP back to Las Vegas for his next fight after competing in Canada for many of his recent fights.
– He was happy with the quality of fights on the prelims. He actually liked the Ring Vs Camozzi fight too even although a lot of fans didn’t.
– Dana says that Chris Weidman’s so confident about beating Anderson Silva that he’s already apologized to him for messing up all the potential superfights with him when he defeats the champion. He will offer Silva an immediate rematch though if he does win.
– White thinks Ben Henderson has more work to do at lightweight before he can start calling for a superfight with GSP.
– He can’t get over the fact that Diaz admits he’s never paid his taxes. White says he’d rather have ninjas and the mob after him than the IRS.
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