Ex-UFC star addresses Dana White's beef with Francis Ngannou, alleges "weird part" of UFC CEO's personality
Dana White's animosity toward former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou is, once again, in the spotlight. An ex-UFC roster mate in Ben Askren recently touched on the feud between the two.
The topic was brought up in the latest episode of the 'Funky and the Champ' podcast on Daniel Cormier's YouTube channel. During the pair's conversation, Askren spoke about his own experience with White when the two didn't see eye to eye.
"Dana spent years lying, saying I didn't want to fight the best. I didn't want challenges, I was running away, and that couldn't have been further from the truth. And so, it sucked to have this guy essentially slander. I wasn't going to do a lawsuit or anything but saying things that I knew weren't true.
"And Dana has this part of his personality when he can't get what he wants. In that case, he didn't offer me a contract, so he kind of got what he wanted."
Askren's relationship with White was once contentious, with the UFC CEO refusing to offer him a contract due to the alleged lack of entertainment value in Askren's fighting style.
"But then because I was continuing to have success and people were continuing to follow me, he wanted me off in a dark corner where everyone ignored me or something, I don't know. He's done the same thing with [Cris] Cyborg, Randy Couture had a similar experience, and now Francis [Ngannou].
"If I thought really hard, I could probably think of some other ones, but there's this weird part of Dana's personality where if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, he just starts crapping on people."
Check out Ben Askren talking about his experience with Dana White (26:31):
Fortunately for Askren, he and White eventually patched things up and he went on to fight in the UFC to mixed success.
Francis Ngannou and Dana White have been engaged in a war
The feud between Francis Ngannou and Dana White has been boiling under the surface. Several incidents have happened since Ngannou's departure from the promotion. First, the UFC falsely billed Tafon Nchukwi as its only Cameroonian fighter in history, even though Ngannou and Rameau Sokoudju have been on the roster.
Moreover, during the buildup to UFC 305, Israel Adesanya mentioned both Kamaru Usman and 'The Predator' on an Embedded episode, only for his mention of Ngannou to be removed from the final cut.