5 times that Dana White beefed with rival promoters
UFC president Dana White is naturally one of the most recognizable characters in MMA. He helped build the UFC into the juggernaut that it is today.
Part of the UFC’s success over the past two decades has come from its willingness to go to war with rival promotions. Dana White has never been a character to shy away from a confrontation with his rivals.
Over the years, we’ve seen Dana White get into multiple spats with rival promoters, whether that’s because they’ve attempted to challenge the UFC’s dominance or because they’ve hit out at the UFC in general. Some of these spats have proven to be hugely memorable, with a number of them still referred to today even if they happened a long time ago.
Here are five times that Dana White beefed with rival promoters.
#5. Dana White vs. Oscar De La Hoya (2018)
One thing that’s guaranteed to make Dana White go ballistic is a rival promoter making derogatory comments about how much the UFC pays its fighters.
Sure, it’s a well-known fact that the UFC doesn’t provide its athletes with a similar share of revenue to other major sporting organizations like the NFL or the NBA, but the truth is that the promotion still pays better than practically all of its rivals in MMA.
However, that didn’t stop boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya from hitting out at the UFC’s payouts in 2018. De La Hoya claimed that the UFC’s pay scale made him “sick to his stomach,” and claimed that he planned to change the sport by producing events under his Golden Boy Promotions banner.
Unsurprisingly, Dana White was quick to refute the claims of the boxing legend. He did so in one of his most epic rants to date.
The UFC president labeled De La Hoya a “cokehead junkie,” referred to him as “Oscar De La Weirdo,” and slammed Golden Boy Promotions for criticizing the UFC’s pay scale while also reportedly paying undercard fighters just $2k for their efforts.
.@danawhite Quit blocking
@GeorgesStPierre’s chance to fight. How about we get into the ring first little B*#ch then after I kick your ass, I’ll fight a real man #DeLaHoyaGSP #LetGSPFight https://t.co/sPKeXpHDDW
Three years later, it seems like this beef is far from done. As recently as October, De La Hoya reportedly hit out at the UFC for supposedly underpaying current featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, only for Dana White to respond by labeling him a “liar, drug addict and all around scumbag.”
@OscarDeLaHoya @alexvolkanovski @ufc STFU U crack head. Faking that u had Covid and robbing me of watching u get KTFO by @vitorbelfort you should win an academy award for your hospital performance.