Yeah – eventually – you can’t be that high up in a company worth over a billion and expect no one to pick up on it. I’m glad they’re at least ahead of the story now.

You’re talking about Dana White right? Mr. F. Bomb…

I don’t need a crystal ball to tell me that a grown ass man that speaks the way he does, isn’t going to stop making derogatory remarks. He will likely be more conscious of what he says and where he says it, but…

Cannon, stop being so damned reasonable

“It seems reasonable to surmise that a generation hence, retard will have lost its sting and will be no more offensive than idiot, imbecile and moron. Unless, of course, the UMass and Special Olympics folks succeed in making it taboo, in which case its current meaning—both its association with the intellectually disabled and its connotations of insult—will be frozen in place. If successful, this effort will retard rather than advance progress.”

That’s funny because I just read one that did about 10 minutes ago.

The UFC president did far more than verbally assault a female reporter Wednesday in a video blog entry. White slurred women, homosexuals and the mentally disabled in the obscenity-laced rant. The diatribe already was yanked from UFC’s web site, but footage can still be found across the Internet. Next up: News outlets (this one included) that will salivate at the chance to show White at his worst.

http://msn.foxsports.com/boxing/story/9408882/White’s-rant-sends-UFC-down-dangerous-path

Here is the thing about hypocrisy, the media is full of it and it still doesn’t matter when they catch you being in the wrong. Sites and bloggers have talked about his language for years but even if they haven’t it’s hard for him to defend himself on the grounds of hypocracy when he is still the one in the wrong. This isn’t about the media it’s about Dana White and the issue is public perception of him, just because no one called him on a specific word before doesn’t mean that it’s his fault for using it now that people are starting to notice what he says.

That misogyny should definitely qualify as hate speech as well.

He was, at least, not discriminatory in the groups he was insulting to.

She’s married, but I’m not sure if Hunt is her maiden or husband’s name.

UFC should just close up shop.

This is my standard response to everyone that is acting like it’s too late to apologize. What else do they expect? It’s a good thing that he’s apologizing. Apologizing is a positive alternative to not apologizing.

They used to say the same thing about professional football because of how violent it was yet it managed to grow. Of course I find your “certain demographic” point to be funny because I am not even close to being in that demographic. Demographics are tv ratings guidelines not rules of media supply and demand.

Oh and boxing used to be mainstream not too long ago so saying that fights sports won’t get to that point was disproved probably before you were even born.

I’m telling you they need to just hire Randy Couture to be the public face of the company and let Dana run the company without the constant spotlight. Randy is a great ambassador for the sport and is more level headed in public than Dana is. If they are going to keep Randy around they might as well use him at what he is best at.

You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

You really need to scale it back with the elitist bullshit. You’re perpetuating the severity of the situation with every passing comment. You’re not the champion of human rights. Temper your enthusiasm.

Furthermore, this is a more complex explanation, which puts “hate speech” into a more profound context;
…abusive, insulting, intimidating, and harassing speech that at the least fosters hatred and discrimination and at its worst promotes violence and killing.

And that’s from the Supreme Court, not fucking Wikipedia.

That being said, Dana did not attack the individual he called a “faggot” based on their sexual preference. And his attack on Hunt was filled with name calling, like many of his tirades regularly are (which does not make it ok, but sets a precedent— just as calling the other individual a “faggot” with no clear basis for the attack to infer their sexual orientation). If you’re trying to tell me that he’s definitively singling out Hunt because she’s a woman, and is hateful towards women as a group, you’re just piling on.

The terms “hate speech” and “hate crime” are not to be taken lightly, even if you manage to find a definition of the term that supports your thinking. I am an active contributor and volunteer with several prominent human rights organizations, and for you to characterize Dana White’s words as encouraging hatred and discrimination is as abhorrent as the idea that it is.

If you want to get wild eyed about the unfair treatment of homosexuals and women, I will gladly forward you literature to matters of true consequence. Or at least those that are much more substantial than a witch hunt after a foul mouthed MMA executive who clearly made a very stupid mistake.

You are attempting to characterize who someone is and what they believe in based on the use of one word. Not only that but you decided the only possible characterization for said person is that they are homophobic.

You are making a large assumption that simply by using a word, even in a manner not directed at the group in question, that it automatically means the person harbors fear or contempt for that group of people. I don’t know if Dana is afraid of or has contempt for the homosexual population because I don’t know him so I can’t say that his behavior conforms to that definition.

This is the kind of news that grows beyond people who care about the sport to people who care about what other people with big mouths say. Lets face it the media loves this kind of stuff and it’s already grown much farther than anyone thought it would yesterday, hopefully tomorrow will be better instead of even worse but we just can’t count on that anymore (thanks to all the work the UFC has done to push the sport into the mainstream).

You haven’t heard of GLAAD so I’m not sure how you know how much pull they do or don’t have, particularly with sponsors, and more importantly than even that future sponsors and partners. If they don’t want this to blow over in a week then they will see that it doesn’t. It’s not like they have even started contacting the mainstream media to push the issue yet. Those people will be happy with the apology they have been promised and they will leave it alone but if they don’t get that then they are liable to push the issue(heck it gets them more media coverage too).

The attention that this has got on MMA sites and the responses it has drawn show that this is a lot more than just a drop in the bucket with the hardcore fans too. Doesn’t the sport already have enough public perception problems without a homophobe or a woman bashing scandal.

Will it? It won’t affect today but who knows what it will do in the future, hell who thought that freaken GLAAD was even paying attention to the sport now?

Wouldn’t PR scandals be a bigger issue when you are smaller instead of when you are more established?

Ok I see it was a different story posted on there, Sergio Non posted a article earlier today.

It’s the AP wire that has picked it up.

White’s response was out of line, but Hunt still isn’t credible.

‘Who can I find that will bash Dana White?’

Easy, fighting is fighting. Pretty much a view that a lot of the main stream media share.

I just assumed Arum called the journalist in question.

Reading some people’s posts thats the only conclusion I can draw.

You know full well I’m not talking about the intelligent discussions from the BE regulars but rather the smug mini-rants from people that offer nothing new on the topic at hand but are intent on convincing no-one in particular that the sky is pink.

I think the vblogs would be fine if there was someone there to stop Dana before he put something like that on Youtube, obviously that isn’t the case. Dana had some good points to make in there but he just blew them due to a lack of self control. There may be some lingering damage but hopefully he just won’t do that again, which would be a good thing that could come out of this.

I’ve got a feeling he didn’t have a concept of how that was so obviously going to blow up in his face when he said it and that he does look sincerly sorry for it. I doubt the Fertitta’s pushed him into it as it looks unscripted and definatly is his own words(although I expected Lorenzo would be behind it I am pleasantly surprised it didn’t come off that way). Still that is just my opinion after watching it a couple of times, who knows what went on behind the scenes.

Dana is now saying he is going to take a step back and reduce his public role in the company, which is probably a good thing. The guy just doesn’t have the personality to sit in the public eye without ruining his own life. I hope it’s a sign that they will hire someone to be the PR face of the UFC and just let Dana do his job running the company.