Following last night’s UFC 170 event in Las Vegas, UFC President Dana White talked to the assembled media about the big talking points emerging from the show.
Check out our keynotes below and scroll down to watch the video for yourselves.
—
– White spoke to Cain Velasquez at the event and he’s apparently feeling good after his shoulder surgery a while ago, though he’s definitely still not 100%.
– Nick Diaz has stated he wants to fight the winner of the vacant welterweight title bout between Johny Hendricks and Robbie Lawler, but White doesn’t seem interested, saying he hasn’t even heard from the fighter himself and he’s not fought for a while so it’s not even worth talking about.
– He admits he’s been hard on Rory MacDonald in his recent fights, but he thought he looked great last night and was happy with his performance.
– White claims he genuinely wasn’t aware that the UFC 170 gate was only $1.5 million after stating earlier in the week that it was $2 million.
– It doesn’t sound like White is immediately going to go running to Cris ‘Cyborg’ after she ditched her manager Tito Ortiz. Instead he’s setting up some ground rules – indicating that she’ll have to take a couple of meaningful fights at 135lbs outside of the UFC first to prove that she can make the weight, as well as stay drug free and come to a contract agreement that makes sense.
– White doesn’t think the turnaround was too quick for Ronda Rousey in terms of the buzz surrounding her, noting that even Will Smith and his family flew into Las Vegas specifically to meet the star and watch her fight. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be a big PPV draw it’s still as big deal to have two women successfully headlining a show like this.
– He thought Daniel Cormier looked “awesome” and did exactly what he had to do against Pat Cummins.
– He doesn’t worry about the fact that a lot of the undercard fights went to a decision again last night, saying it’s a live sporting event and anything can happen. He admits they were very lucky last year when the exciting fights just kept on coming, but he knows it can’t happen like that all the time.
– There’s a $10 million pot for bonus money this year and White wants to make sure that all goes to the fighters and so the ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards work out better to ensure they get paid as with the old system sometimes there were no KO or Submission’s so those bonuses didn’t pay out.
– Apparently Anderson Silva’s doctor is shocked at his remarkable recovery. He’s shown more bone growth in two months than many people see in two years. The doctor is optimistic that he will make a full recovery and could even fight by the end of the year if all continues to go well, though they are still being cautious and not drawing any firm plans just yet.
They are planning to visit Silva at his house on Wednesday.
– Anthony Pettis is healing well from his injury and is on schedule for his recovery. He’s not thinking about what’s next for him yet.
—
