Dana White credits Vince McMahon for UFC event, fighter takes down knife attacker, Conor McGregor sent a DM to 'crazy plane lady': MMA News Roundup
Find out about the biggest UFC updates and other stories with Sportskeeda's daily MMA News Roundup.
Today's issue will discuss Vince McMahon's role in the upcoming UFC events, Conor McGregor's private message to the viral woman from the plane video, and more.
#3. Dana White gives Vince McMahon credit for UFC Saudi Arabia
The UFC is all set to host its first-ever event in Saudi Arabia in March 2024, and Dana White says they have Vince McMahon to thank for it.
McMahon, the founder of WWE and the chairman of the newly-formed TKO group, helped the UFC to set the entire event up, according to White. WWE has been holding events in the country for nearly a decade.
Speaking with Sports Business Journal, he said:
"It was Vince McMahon. It was 100% Vince McMahon. He made every call, he didn’t make one move without picking up the phone and calling me and getting me in the loop, and seeing if I was cool with this and that."
White added that McMahon went from being a so-called enemy of the MMA promotion to an "unbelievable, incredible partner", presumably since the merger went through.
The UFC CEO has previously talked about McMahon antagonizing him as a fellow businessman and accused him of sabotaging UFC deals in the past. In a recent episode of TRIGGERED podcast, White detailed how McMahon nixed a deal the company was about to sign with NBC before teaming up with FOX.
#2. 34-year-old MMA fighter takes down an attacker with a knife in Florida
A local Florida MMA fighter named Javier Baez recently disarmed a rogue attacker wielding a knife in a parking lot. A grainy CCTV footage of the incident went viral on the internet, which brought the 34-year-old much due credit on social media.
Baez is seen slamming the attacker down, removing the knife from his hand, and holding him down with a hold in the footage.
Watch the clip below:
Fans took to Twitter to heap praise on the man, with some even labeling him as a 'hero without cape'.
Read the comments here.
#1. Conor McGregor slid into the DMs of Tiffany Gomas, the "crazy plane lady"
Anyone who uses the internet on a regular basis would remember the woman who got tagged as the "crazy plane lady" a few months back.
A video of her pointing towards the back of the plane and shouting, "That motherf***er back there is not real," went viral on social media. While many people dismissed it as an act of paranoia, many were curious to know what she saw that made her snap.
UFC megastar Conor McGregor was one of them.
Appearing on the Pardon My Take podcast in November, the woman in question, Tiffany Gomas, was asked if any celebrities got in touch with her about the incident. She said that McGregor had sent her a DM, but his intentions were purely to know what she had seen.
"Conor McGregor reached out. He sent me a DM. He wasn’t trying to get in my pants or anything... He wanted to know what I saw.”
She added that McGregor had also followed her on social media platforms, which she finds "wild".
Watch Tiffany Gomas discuss the topic at 2:42:50 in the video below:
Gomas has since come out and admitted in multiple interviews that she, in fact, did not see anything or anyone. She got into an altercation and overreacted, which was blown out of proportion by the media. She said she was embarrassed by the incident, but her words were merely a figure of speech. She did not see anything supernatural or unworldly inside the plane like many had theorized.