Following an exciting night of fights at ‘UFC On FOX 7’ last night, Dana White spoke to the media about a number of big talking points in MMA and beyond.
Read our keynotes below and scroll down to watch the full video for yourselves.
– Originally being from Boston himself, White was naturally shocked by the shocking events in the city this week and after next week’s UFC event he intends to go there to see what he can do to help and visit some of the victims. It sounds as if he’s going to provide some kind of financial aid, though to whom and how much isn’t clear.
– White says he always goes into the Octagon after a Diaz brother fights just to make sure nothing bad happens afterwards!
– He thinks it was a great event and a great month overall for the UFC with a lot of good fights and no injury problems.
– White thinks Daniel Cormier fought a “safe” fight, but still dominated Frank Mir. He doesn’t think his punching power is as good at heavyweight as it could be if he moved down to light-heavyweight, but it’s up to him what he decides to do next.
– The winner of Gray Maynard Vs TJ Grant gets the next shot at Ben Henderson’s title. White says it was matchmaker Joe Silva’s decision.
– White hasn’t spoken to GSP yet to find out what he wants to do next.
– The UFC president says he had a feeling as early as the second round of the Henderson Vs Melendez that it was heading for a close, controversial decision.
– White admits he thought Henderson’s head might not be in the fight when the champion came in and asked him if he could propose to his girlfriend after it. He says he chatted calmly with him for 15 minutes about it while the event was going on. “Henderson’s an interesting character,” White says.
– Henderson recently said he’d retire in three years time, and White believes him, saying he seems like the kind of guy that would make a plan like that and stick to it.
– Dana thinks it’d be a mistake for Nate Diaz to move back up to 170lbs.
– He’s a little critical of Mir, suggesting that he should have been trying harder to make something happen in the final round. He levels the same criticism at Henderson and Melendez, believing that they didn’t go all out in the fifth round.
– White believes Jordan Mein made a mistake by not continuing to taget Matt Brown’s body after clearly hurting him there in the opening round.
– He’s happy for Duane ‘Bang’ Ludwig who’s now the head coach over at Team Alpha Male and appears to be having a big effect on their striking given the number of finishes they’ve been having of late.
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