UFC President Dana White on UFC 151 being cancelled: “I had my moment where I was upset. One of the things that I like is our consistency. We’ve never cancelled an event. People don’t realize the collateral damage that goes on and how many people who are depending on these events to go on. Not just the fighters and the UFC. So many other people who work for, or are invested in these shows and this this the first time we’ve ever cancelled one, so that’s a little emotional.”
White on if he has any regrets cancelling UFC 151: “No regrets whatsoever.”
White on if Dan Henderson is to blame for UFC 151 being cancelled: “Dan Henderson knew two weeks before the fight. Two weeks before he told me he was injured, he knew. And if he had given me those two weeks, like he should have, this fight might have happened.”
White on if Chael Sonnen talked his way to a title shot: “He was the only guy to accept the fight with Jon. He’s the only one willing to step up. It’s one thing if you’re trying to talk your way over a bunch of people because you talked, but the reality is he’s the only guy who’s ever come close to beating Anderson Silva. And he was the only guy to step up and take the fight with Jones. Not only did he accept the fight, he said ‘I’ll flight out to Las Vegas and fight him tonight.’ And Chael says some crazy stuff, but he meant it. The guy was going to show up with no training camp, with eight days and he was going to show up and train.”
White on if Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen will fight down the road: “He was the guy who stepped up. If the fans wanted to see the fight between Chael and Jon Jones, I’d have to make it.”
White on the pitfalls of the business and cancelling a fight: “We spent two-million dollars in advertising for 151. It’s a business and I have to deal with it. Every day when I wake up, bad things are going to happen and I’ve got to deal with them. I’m proud to say this is the first time we’ve ever had to cancel an event. We’ve always been able to scramble and put it back together good enough to make the fans happy, or sometimes make the fight even better than before. You think we wanted to cancel the first event ever? No way in hell.”
White on what happened to the other fighters who were supposed to fight at UFC 151: “Some of the guys are booked to fight right away and the guys who are booked later are getting compensated.”
White on Anderson Silva offering to fight at UFC 151: “What happened was when he found out things weren’t going right, he said he’d to fly to Vegas to fight somebody and defend his title. I would never call the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world and ask him to fight in eight days, and who’s really going to fight Anderson on eight days’ notice? Maybe Chael – he’d be in all these fights. But I’d never do that to a guy.”
White on his relationship with Jones: “We haven’t talked since the incident. I’ve got no animosity towards Jones. We’ll find out how our relationship is as we move on. This thing is a little weird. It’s never happened before. Jon is a young guy and he’s made mistakes that young people make. Who doesn’t at his age? If I went back to being 23 years old with a ton of fame and a ton of money, that’s when you make all your mistakes. The great thing about making your mistakes in your 20s is by the time you’re established yourself in your late 20s and 30s, you’ve already made all your mistakes and you can conduct yourself the way you should. I give Jon Jones a lot of slack. The guy is young. I’m never going to tell you because Jon Jones didn’t fight in 151 that he’s a terrible fighter. He’s a phenomenal fighter. Anyone who’s watched the UFC long enough and knows my personality, they know how I am. I’ve dealt with the baddest dudes in the world for the last 12 years, and that’s what I like doing. I like fighters. I like how they think. They can be a little hard to deal with, but that’s part of the game.”
White on Lyoto Machida turning down the fight at UFC 152: “When I make a fight, I don’t say a word until everything is signed. I did exactly what I never do. That big media call was the next day and Machida couldn’t be reached and his manager thought he’d take the fight. Before this happened he was terrorizing me for a title shot, and then he said four weeks wasn’t enough. But then things start going in another direction. It happened to Rashad Evans. He was out of a fight for a year and a half. Machida is not next in line now. He will need to go fight somebody else first.”
White on Vitor Belfort fighting at UFC 152: “Vitor is fired up to have this opportunity. Number one, he’s the only Brazilian to step up and take this fight. Number two, that Anderson Silva fight drives him crazy. So he dove right in. He knows that when an opportunity comes, you take it and do what you have to do to get ready. You take it because you don’t know when it’s going to come again. He called asking for this fight. I think Vitor is incredibly talented and can finish a fight with anybody. The problem with Vitor is he freezes a lot. He’ll go out and stare at you instead of letting his hands go. If he goes out and does what he can do and Jon Jones does what he can do, regardless of what happened with 151, that should be a sick fight.”
White on Brian Stann vs. Michael Bisping at UFC 152: “It’s an incredibly important fight. As soon as you start saying what’s next for Anderson Silva, something pops up and there’re tons of guys who are ready to fight him in the mix and we’ll see what happens.”
White on whether Chris Weidman will fight for the title: “No. We’ll see what happens. It could happen.”
White on Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva: “I think we’re pretty close. If Georges beats Condit, that could be the next fight. These guys want to fight each other now. They’d probably do the fight at 180. If that fight happens, it’ll probably be at Dallas Texas stadium.”
White on if he’ll make a Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko fight: “The question on the website was ‘Could Dana make this fight?’ Then I asked if people wanted to see this fight? I was asking the question. I’ve done so much to get Fedor in the UFC. But the guy retired. I couldn’t get him when he was fighting. I don’t know if I could get him now.”
) he would most likely get a rematch
for Sonnen and saying he was with him for the last few weeks and was not training. Like i said earlier, i wont be surprised if Rashad or Dana are instigating this
- now he is trying to blame Hendo when dude was working through the injury to carry on with the fight? Blaming everyone but the UFC