After a good night of fights on FOX, Dana white appeared on Fuel TV with Ariel Helwani to discuss the evening’s big talking points.
Read keynotes from their conversation below and scroll down to watch the full video for yourselves.
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– White was “pumped” with how the event went and describes it as “the perfect night”.
He was also relieved that Nate Diaz finished Jim Miller rather than the fight going the full five rounds as they already 35 minutes behind schedule on FOX.
– Dana feels that Diaz stint at welterweight a while back was actually good for him, and now that he’s fought some of the best at both lightweight and welterweight it’s improved his game to the point where he now “looks phenomenal.”
– Anthony Pettis wants to fight Nate Diaz to establish a true No.1 contender, but that’s not how things are going to work out. Diaz is now set to wait for the opportunity to fight the winner of the Ben Henderson Vs Frankie Edgar rematch which Dana believes will take place in August / September.
– Dana had Josh Koscheck winning the first round and Johny Hendricks the second in their fight. He feels that if Koscheck had done more with his ground and pound from top position in the final round it’d have been enough to sway the fight in his favor.
– White confesses when Rousimar Palhares took Alan Belcher down he was convinced that the fight was over. “Wow!” was White’s reaction to seeing Belcher not only survive Palhares infamous submissions, but then go on to TKO him on the ground. “He blew me away tonight,” White says.
– The UFC president liked the fact that the Lavar Johnson Vs Pat Barry fight ebbed and flowed with Johnson getting the better of the stand-up action while Barry had him close to being submitted on the mat.
He says he thought that Barry might have been set to survive the onslaught that finally TKO’d him, and implies that if he had done so it might have left them in a situation going into the second round where Johnson may have punched himself out after “a serious combination” of strikes.
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