Following last night’s UFC 165 event in Canada, UFC President Dana White spoke to FOX Sports 1 about one of the greatest title fights in the history of the sport between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson and the evening’s other big talking points.
Read our keynotes below and scroll down to watch the full video for yourselves.
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– White says he was too caught up in the main event between Jones and Gustafsson to score it so he’ll have to watch it again. he says on the way out of the arena he was hearing other people give differing opinions on who won. He notes that the UFC’s own Mark Ratner had it 2-2 going into the final round and thought Jones won.
– Dana gives his interviewer, Ariel Helwani, a hard time for questioning the UFC’s decision to make much of the pre-fight hype be about the comparable height and reach of the two men. In hindsight he thinks the fight proved that the promotional push had been right on the money.
– He didn’t expect the fight to go five rounds and he had no idea that Gustafsson was going to be able to continually stop Jones’ takedowns during the fight – he thought that was going to be his weakness.
– He praises Jones chin and his unorthadox striking ability.
– While Gustafsson is very disappointing with the decision White told him that there were no losers in this fight and his stock has now gone through the roof due to his performance.
– Jones went straight to the hospital after the fight (it emerged later that Gustafsson had also required hospital treatment).
According to White, the huge cut that Jones had over his eye almost resulted in the fight being stopped in-between the fourth and fifth rounds. However both Jones and referee John McCarthy pleaded with the doctor to let the fight continue.
– White says there “a real good possibility” that we could be looking at an immediate rematch here.
– He’s full of praise for Renan Barao, calling him “unbelievably amazing”.
– If Dominick Cruz isn’t ready to defend his bantamweight belt by the 1st of January then he’ll have to vacate the title and presumably Barao would be immediately installed as the new champ.
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