Yesterday we posted on famed men's fashion magazine GQ ranking UFC president Dana White as one of the "sleaziest figures in sports". It was a list of 25 and he placed 8th, ahead of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong but behind the now incarcerated War Machine. In the latest edition of the UFC's weekly interview series, The Download, White addressed this bit of negative press:
"You’re never going to be able to stop what people say about you, and everybody isn’t going to love you," White said. "But I don’t take offense to anything. When you’re in a public position like this you’re always going to have people say things about you. Believe me, if I worried about everything that was said about me, I would have been a mess a long time ago. That kind of stuff doesn’t bother me at all, not even a little bit."
The GQ described White as "underpaying his employees", "bullying other organizations", and "impersonating Don King as a bald white guy". While White never bothered with the descriptions of his character, he did dispute the fighter pay quip:
“It was definitely written by someone who is uneducated about the sport. I’m sandwiched between War Machine and Lance Armstrong,” White said while cracking a smile at the obvious absurdity of the article. “The thing that’s unfortunate is that it’s unfair for the UFC as a brand. UFC pays its fighters very well."
So while GQ's article certainly had the potential to provide White ammunition to unleash one of his usual rants, his response to this particular piece was definitely more measured, whether you agree with his statements or not.