Ronda Rousey has always appeared to have a very good relationship with Dana White, but that’s set to be tested in the coming months as ‘Rowdy’ is pulling no punches as she looks to go toe-to-toe against the UFC to promote her super-fight against Gina Carano in May.
Rousey’s unexpected comeback after a decade to fight Gina Carano has already got everyone talking and is threatening to overshadow the one-of-a-kind UFC: White House event a month later.
The fact that Rousey is one of the biggest draws ever in the sport, and that Carano was also very popular in her day as MMA’s first ever breakthrough female star, are certainly major factors, but the big ace they have up their sleeve is that the fight will air on Netflix, which has a massive audience base that Paramount+ simply can’t compete with.
Despite that, so far Dana White has been playing it cool, as on Saturday night he insisted that he was happy for Rousey and Carano, and even acknowledged that the UFC had at one point been interested in making the fight.
“Her and I have been talking about this since last year,” White said about Rousey at the UFC Fight Night 267 post-fight press conference. “It just didn’t work out. But I’m happy for her.
“Listen, me and Gina are in a really good place, we weren’t at one point. I’m happy for both of them.”
White’s response might have been short and sweet, but meanwhile Rousey has been spilling the beans about what she claims was really went on behind the scenes in the negotiations with her former boss.
“[Dana] literally brought me a deal where I would make more per pay-per-view buy than anybody in UFC history… He just needed more time, and it happened to go to the other side when the ESPN model would be ending, and they would be going to streaming,” Rousey said on ‘The Jim Rome Show’.
“They didn’t want to set a precedent of giving me the guaranteed money I deserve… They just made a $7.7 billion deal at Paramount. It’s in their best interest not to put on the best fights possible, but to spend as little money as possible so they can keep it… Now that they sold the company, it’s out of Dana’s hands unfortunately, and it’s fallen onto Hunter Campbell and UFC corp. They don’t care about putting on the best fights possible; they care about putting on the most cost-effective fights possible.”
Adding extra spice to this whole situation is the fact that the Rousey vs. Carano fight is being promoted by Most Valuable Promotions, owned by none other than Jake Paul, who has been one of White’s most outspoken critics over the years.
And Rousey has just drawn the battle lines by publicly declaring that she sees her upcoming fight as both a direct battle between the two rival promotions, as well as a head-to-head clash between herself and Dana White.
“It’s a dream fight and a super fight and everything, but I feel like the story and everything behind it is not just this fight, but a lot of it is MVP versus UFC,” Rousey said on the MVP YouTube channel. “And that’s where I’m going to f*cking go real hard in the trenches.”
“We’re helping them because they’re suffering from a lack of competition. And they can’t just make a class action lawsuit every couple of years as the cost of doing business. And so, I’m really trying to help Dana [White] out.
“If anyone has been groomed to be his apprentice, it’s been me. And I think I’d be the most favorite adversary he’s ever had.”
We’ve already seen White’s long-time cordial relationship with boxing promoter Eddie Hearn turn into a scorched earth feud in real-time over the past week or two, but the long history and deeply rooted links between the UFC head honcho and Rousey gives this the potential to be an even bigger powder keg moment in the making.
