Dana White interview with ESPN

Tyler Durden

From f4wonline.com

Notes from what is becoming a now-weekly State of the Octagon address with Dana White, this time with ESPN Magazine and Ryan Hockensmith.

Regarding the Most Technical Streetfight Ever with Noah and Marlon, he said: "Spike really wanted that fight to happen, and we ended up booking the fight. Then I realized, 'How the fuck did we book that fight?' That fight will probably happen somewhere else, but it won't happen in the UFC. The thing that people have to realize is in 'The Ultimate Fighter,' those guys aren't UFC fighters. They want to be UFC fighters. We're looking at them through this microscope and looking at all their strengths and weaknesses. Not just in fighting, but in everyday life. Do they drink too much? Do they do this or that? We're looking for the next guy who can become a world champion. If you ask people out there, they'd love to see those two fight. But if you asked them if those two guys deserved to be in the UFC, everybody would tell you no."

Maybe I'm misreading that quote, but it now seems he's turned a corner on his original claim, which was that Spike booked it and they knew nothing about it. Dana is seriously becoming more like Vince every day, as now he seems to be regularly changing his mind about stuff.

Speaking of, Dan Henderson vs. Rampage Jackson is a unification bout this week. "It will absolutely be a unification bout. We have to respect Henderson's titles. He knocked out Wanderlei Silva and had the 185-pound championship. When he fights Rampage, they both have belts. Why should Dan Henderson get the UFC title if Rampage can't get the PRIDE titles? It makes one of them the undisputed guy."

I think he said he was misquoted when he claimed that neither belt would be on the line a few weeks back. Here is the exact quote, and I have no idea how this could have been taken out of context: "No. What we’re doing with that thing is we’re respecting both (the UFC and PRIDE) titles. The UFC title is the UFC champion and we’re respecting Dan as the PRIDE champion. Quinton will walk out with his belt if Dan wins and vice versa." Anyway, regardless, it's on, thank God. The match was pointless without that stip, especially since they're not doing anything with PRIDE anyway. Also, Chuck vs. Wanderlei, which appeared to be off last week, now appears to be back on. "God, I hope so. So many people have wanted to see that fight for so many years, and PRIDE basically killed the fight. Now that Chuck has lost, the fight makes more sense and I'd love to make it happen. We're on the phone every day with fighters and fighters' managers. There's still work to be done." He said he honestly believed it would happen within the next sis months. Chuck has been texting him every day asking about the next fight. He said they hadn't announced it yet, but November would be at the New Jersey Devil's Arena for a PPV. The one thing he hasn't changed his mind on it that IFL, Bodog, Elite XC, etc., are no competition.

"I don't look at those guys as competition at all. They're nowhere near the league that we're in. I need shows like that. They're the feeder leagues. All the guys who fight in those shows aspire to be in the UFC someday. They're creating all the UFC talent of tomorrow." He said he actually watched IFL once and it was "fucking painful". He watched the Frank vs. Baroni fight. "I had dinner at the Palms, and I had them put it on in the room because I wanted to see Baroni knock his head off. It didn't work out that way." He may have vomited afterwards for all I know. That finish killed him. He said they both looked bad. Well, they felt bad. He was asked if he'd have Frank back for a big event. "Who knows? But Frank is such a moron. He's so hard to deal with. He really is a jackass. If I could get it done, maybe I would. Look at me and Tito. We don't get along at all. You won't ever find two people who work together talk more shit about each other. Tito's an idiot. He's a complete, absolute moron. But we can do business." I don't care what anyone says, I love Dana White. He said they wanted 10 UFC PPVs next year. Dana is smarter than Vince, that has been established. He said he expected the HBO deal to be done within a matter of weeks. He said they'd have Fedor "soon", before the end of the year. And regarding PRIDE's future: "I don't know what we're going to do yet because that thing is so messed up. We're still trying to figure it out. It's a complete disaster. They went out of business for a reason".