Dana White UFC 168 Media Scrum

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Yesterday UFC president Dana White spoke to the media during a promotional tour for December’s UFC 168 title rematch between Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman.

Check out our keynotes below and scroll down to watch the full video for yourselves courtesy of MMAfighting.com.

– He thinks Silva probably isn’t overly thrilled to be having to do this week long promotional tour for the rematch. Regardless of his level of enthusiasm for the pre-fight hype though, White is absolutely convinced that once they get into the Octagon the rematch is going to be “insane.”

– White personally flew to L.A to meet with Silva the week after his first loss to Weidman to convince him to take the rematch.

– He says the original Ronda Rousey Vs Miesha Tate fight sold him on women’s MMA, and he thinks people are going to be excited for the co-main event rematch between them too at UFC 168.

– After rewatching the Jones Vs Gustafsson fight, Dana is convinced that the judges made the right decision.

– He sounded as if he’s cooling slightly on the idea of an immediate rematch between Jones and Gustafsson, and suggests that Glover Teixeira could still get the next title shot. It’s something they still have to figure out though, so nothing’s set in stone at this stage.

– As for Daniel Cormier potentially getting a shot at the 205lb title, White says there’s still too many questions left unanswered such as whether he can make the weight and whether he’s able to defeat Roy Nelson in his next fight.

Cormier is apparently not happy with Nelson’s long beard, and it’s fair to say that White absolutely hates it! He thinks fighters should have to trim their beards to a sensible length.

– In terms of PPV buys for this past weekend’s UFC 165 show, White claims they did around about what they expected to do, but reading between the lines it doesn’t appear to have been a big number. He cites the fact that over two million people bought the Mayweather Vs Canello PPV boxing event a week earlier as one of the issues they faced in getting people to buy their show.

– Despite differences with EA Sports in the past, it sounds as if White has completely buried the hatchet with them and is excited for the forthcoming UFC game they are making.

– The likes of boxing manager Al Haymon and Mayweather have indicated they may be interested in managing some MMA fighters, and White says he doesn’t have a problem with that.

– When asked if he would consider promoting a boxing fight he says he’s learned to stick to doing what he does best.

– White doesn’t believe that Silva will fight like he did in his original encounter with Weidman, but admits that with the former champion you never know for sure what he’s going to do next.

He says he’s not concerned with who wins, he just wants to see a great fight.

– Dana acknowledges that while Jones Vs Gustafsson was a classic fight, so was Dan Henderson Vs ‘Shogun’ Rua from last year.

– In his estimation Jones could go on to break Anderson Silva’s long unbeaten run as champion given how young and talented he is.

– GSP and Anderson Silva are likely to end up with their own UFC branded gym at some point.

– He enjoyed the boxing event from a week ago, and said the only flaw that whole weekend was the bad judging.

– Speaking of the injury crisis that struck the UFC last year, White says that in a strange way he’s glad it happened, simply because it made him aware how bad things can get. He’s relieved that’s behind him, and if they can stay relatively injury-free for the rest of the year then they’ve got great cards lined up and he’s eagerly anticipating them.

 

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.