Find out what Dana White had to say to the media in a post-fight scrum following last night’s UFC 159 event.
We’ve got our keynotes for you below and you can scroll down to watch the full video for yourselves.
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– Anderson Silva called Dana up after the show requesting a particular fight. White is staying closed lipped on who he wants, but given the timing it would seem there’s a good chance it’s Jon Jones.
White points out that Silva still has to get past Chris Weidman first and then he’ll work on putting the mystery fight together.
– He calls it a “weird night” due to a lot of freak injuries and bad refereeing decisions.
– According to White, the UFC’s biggest enemy, The Culinary Union has spent over $2 million lobbying against the promotion in the past couple of years.
– White isn’t sure whether Chael Sonnen will fight again. He says FOX see him as their No.1 guy in front of the camera and he thinks that he could do things for the network on other sports as well.
– Dana laughs as he recalls that Sonnen joked to him inside the Octagon that, “I think that I won that fight and it’s going to be very controversial.” White says he told him that he’d probably be able to get people to believe that.
White had no problem with what some have called an early stoppage in that fight. He thought Sonnen was hurt.
– He says the premature stoppage due to an eye poke suffered by Gina Villante was “terrible.” He says a doctor should have checked him out first and that decision should have been made by him.
He notes however that in New Jersey there isn’t a five minute rule following an eyepoke like there is for a groin strike. He says that’s because the rules are based around boxing where eyepokes don’t occur and he feels they need to revamp the rules here.
– It looks like Daniel Cormier will fight Roy Nelson next, but he needs to talk to him first.
– If Anderson Silva loses to Chris Weidman he wouldn’t consider a superfight for him next.
– Matt Mitrione’s been trying to goad Jon Jones into a heavyweight fight, but White feels he should be just focusing on getting a few wins under his belt rather than calling out one of the best fighters in the world.
– White reveals that UFC 159 PPV sales look to be trending above their expectations.
– White feels Jon Jones is still growing up and maturing as he deals with being a huge star, and he says he likes him a lot better now than he did two years ago.
– Dana talks a little bit about some of the boxing he watched that was going on prior to the UFC on Saturday night, saying that from what he saw Showtime did a much better job than HBO in terms of presentation.
– He doesn’t sound too confident about Leonard Garcia’s future in the UFC after his latest defeat.
– If Sonnen does retire, White hints he’ll still have a job with the UFC in one form or another.
– Phil Davis is at the center of some serious allegations regarding domestic abuse of the mother of his child, a story that emerged on TMZ just a couple of days before the fight but White suggests that this is all down to a custody battle between the two that’s turned ugly. He thinks the news was timed to leak when it did to try to disrupt him from his upcoming fight. He says Phil a nice guy and he’s never had an issue with him.
– White would like to go to Russia, but a deal isn’t done yet. He’s got no interest in joining forces with M1 Global when they do go there.
– White and a number of the UFC’s other big execs are having a meeting with Reebok on Monday regarding something that sounds pretty major on the sponsorship front.
In general White claims the UFC has turned a big page regarding sponsorship and a lot of opportunities are now opening up for them. Apparently someone from Dorito’s was also at tonight’s event and spoke with Dana.
– White says UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta is so ‘by the book’ that he didn’t even think it was a good idea when Dana let a couple of the Octagon girls do Playboy in the past. He says Fertitta also steered the UFC away from potentially doing sponsorship opportunities with online gambling companies in the past due to the fact that they were operating illegally, and White acknowledges that in hindsight that proved to be an astute decision.
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