"Pay your fu***** fighter what you owe him" - When Dana White roasted legendary promoter Bob Arum
Dana White harshly criticized boxing promoter Bob Arum in an epic rant last year.
One of the most stinging jibes Dana White took at the promoter was a statement whereby he called Arum out for allegedly not paying his fighters. Weighing in on Arum purportedly refusing to pay one of his top boxers, Terence Crawford, White asserted: "Pay your fu***** fighter what you owe him."
During a media scrum, Dana White was asked for his thoughts on the much-discussed Arum-Crawford feud. The UFC boss didn’t mince words and proceeded to mock Arum. White stated:
“(Could) you imagine if I said that? Are you f**king kidding me? You guys would murder me if I said that. I’d never hear the end of that. That’s what you do. That’s not his (Crawford’s) f**king problem. That’s your problem. His problem isn’t to figure out how you make money. You f**king signed a deal with this kid. Your job is to promote him. Your job is; you made a deal – All these kids that I sign, you know, and if you look right now at all the kids we’ve signed and how many people we have, our roster is very inflated right now. We have a very, very big roster; biggest roster we’ve ever had in the history of the company.”
White continued that it was Arum's job to find ways of paying his boxers. The UFC president continued:
“I have to pay all these kids. How I pay them is not their f**king problem. It’s my f**king problem. And this guy wants to go, imagine me saying, ‘Oh, I gotta pay Conor McGregor, my goodness; this much money. I could’ve built a house in Beverly Hills’. Shut the f**k up, you f**king scumbag. Pay your f**king fighter what you owe him. That’s your job. And Bob Arum is a piece of f**king sh**. Good night everybody.”
What was the Bob Arum vs. Terence Crawford feud Dana White referred to?
Back in November 2020, one of the hot-button topics in the boxing world was the feud between Top Rank Boxing promoter Bob Arum and his client. Terence Crawford was one of this generation’s greatest pound-for-pound boxers.
Arum had claimed that he was losing money by promoting Crawford’s fights, as Crawford wasn’t a good enough box office draw.
Crawford is expected to fight Shawn Porter next. It will be the last fight on his contract with Top Rank Boxing. The contract comes to an end this October.