Dana White Post UFC 88 Interview

by Nick Thomas on Sep 10, 2008 9:07 AM EDT

Yahoo! Sports sits down for an exclusive conversation with UFC president Dana White just after UFC 88. Hear Dana go on the offensive against the Lesnar critics and more.

HT: ESPN Radio 1100

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Am I just desensitized to it...

Or did Dana just make it through the interview without dropping an eff-bomb? Seems obvious that he’s really been trying to change his image in the last month. A lot less abrasive in his interviews and such. Wonder if it’s Lorenzo’s influence since he came aboard full time.

That being said, I hadn’t heard anything about what Tom Atencio has said about being blocked in Vegas. Anyone have a link to that somewhere? Dana does have a point though, out of all the places to choose, why Vegas? Talk about jumping into the fire.

by LiuLang on Sep 10, 2008 9:34 AM EDT reply actions

No, I think you're absolutely correct.

It sounded to me like Lorenzo’s purpose for getting involved was to rehabilitate their image somewhat. I’m guessing part of the problem they’ve had with overseas markets has been the underground image associated with MMA, and Dana needed some guidance on how to clean it up.

Dana’s always so respectful whenever he mentions Lorenzo. THAT’s what kinda freaks me out..

There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

by misterjonez on Sep 10, 2008 9:51 AM EDT up reply actions

Link:

According to VP Tom Atencio, Affliction is being hindered by the UFC in their Sin City efforts:

"They’ve been messing with me every step of the way," Atencio said. "There have been issues that I’ve been dealing with. So I can’t say it’s them, but there’s been things we’ve been dealing with that have never happened before, so I guess that’s why."

Atencio didn’t specifically list how the UFC was messing with him, but when the IFL attempted to break into the Vegas market, they faced radio stations that wouldn’t air their ads and marketing groups who refused to work with them. The rumor was that the UFC had threatened any ad networks or radio stations who cooperated with their competition, suggesting that they’d lose out on much greater business in the future from the UFC.

by Nick Thomas on Sep 10, 2008 9:43 AM EDT reply actions

Thanks Nick

by LiuLang on Sep 10, 2008 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions

Am I alone in thinking that this is fair play?

Dana’s got massive leverage, especially in Vegas. Why on Earth would he surrender what is literally HIS ground to an upstart?

There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

by misterjonez on Sep 10, 2008 9:49 AM EDT up reply actions

Vegas is Dana’s playground. I agree with him when he said that there are 50 million other places to put on a fight. That would be like you letting your neighbors dog tear up your backyard.

I really enjoyed the interview, and also noticed the lack of F-bombs. He sounded like the president of a large company in that interview.

by Heenan on Sep 10, 2008 10:09 AM EDT up reply actions

All's fair in love and war, right?

And setting up your second show in Vegas is the business equivalent to declaring war, isn’t it? Atencio and Affliction came out guns blazing trying to compete with the UFC and now that it’s not going so well for them, they start complaining? Give ma a break.

I’m sure UFC has paid a lot of money to some of these ad agencies and radio stations and it seems perfectly within their right to let them know they’ll take their business elsewhere if they help their competition.

by LiuLang on Sep 10, 2008 10:10 AM EDT up reply actions

I think Attencio lost all right to whine about anything the UFC does when they let Randy step into the ring after the Fedor/Sylvia fight.

That, plus having this event in LV and the closed circuit TV showing of the PPV across the street from the UFC event that night were direct shots at the UFC. He’s an idiot if he thought they would just roll over and take it.

by Phildo on Sep 10, 2008 10:49 AM EDT up reply actions

don’t fuck with the UFC before you even put on a PPV thats what we can learn from this..just because fighters wore ya tshirt dont make you know how to run a MMA organization…and if Brock Keeps wining people will realize the dude is for real and not just a freak show all he has to do is get in the cage and execute..he has my respect at least he is fighting real competition unlike another fighter with similar Hype

"If I wanted to spend a half hour between two hairy legs I'd go to your mother's house." -Don Frye

by Pitbull on Sep 10, 2008 12:43 PM EDT reply actions

Affliction started the fight… Zuffa is gonna finish it for them.

The back story:

Affliction went to Zuffa and wanted to do an exclusive deal on their terms… Zuffa listened, and said, sounds good but not interested at this time… no hard feelings.

Affliction got thier panties in a knot and decided to compete with the UFC and steal their fighters.

They thought… “shit, since we are already practically paying them to wear a t-shirt what the UFC is paying them to fight… it’s a no brainer”

(little did they realize that they were getting actual eyeballs for those sponsorship dollars and they would have to pay at a minimum 50% to 100% more than what the UFC pays them for it to make sense for the fighters.)

The calls began and they started feeling out fighters.

They decided Couture was the one… so they went through Yoko to get this done (didnt work out to well now it seems).

Zuffa was going to use UFC 91 to counter not on free TV but to take afflictions PPV spot… that’s why Zuffa kept it up in the air for a bit.

Affliction made the decision to rush and go early in october in order to keep the wrath off of them… and thus ended up with a ifL 2.0 type of card.

And then the geniuses decided to hit back the UFC by going into their backyard…

When you go to war and all you have are ak 47’s and the other side has stealth bombers, tanks, jets, laser guided missiles you better plan accordingly otherwise your done which is what’s happening here.

This is tantamount to when Sadam said “this will be the mother of all wars” a few weeks before he got his ass handed to him in the first gulf war.

by mmalogic on Sep 10, 2008 2:35 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs