Ronda Rousey was asked to describe Dana White in one word Tuesday, and — as a most giving fighter — she offered four. “Loyal to a fault,” she said from Los Angeles during MVP’s first MMA press conference, setting the table for her May 16 bout against Gina Carano.
Dogs are described that way.
Advertisement
So are hopeless romantics, cult members and Tim Duncan for all those years on the Spurs. But Dana White, her longtime promoter who helped get her to the top of the MMA world?
What she meant was Dana has been loyal to the UFC, even if today’s version of the UFC — the one helmed by TKO, the powerhouse that owns the UFC, WWE and Zuffa Boxing hydra — has lost the narrative. Dana is caught in a particularly soulless movement, she said in so many words, that is setting out to appease shareholders at the cost of doing the kind of business that got them where they are.
If ’tis the season to air grievances against those sacred three letters, we’re in the heart of it. We have Tom Aspinall hiring White’s nemesis, Eddie Hearn, for representation, in what was a counterstrike against Zuffa Boxing for poaching Connor Benn. We have Aspinall siding with the bane of his existence, Jon Jones, for the recent treatment he received from the UFC.
Because, oh yeah, to kick off the week Jones asked for his outright release from the promotion after some discrepancies (read: lies) surfaced as to why he wasn’t on the White House card. In Dana’s version, Jones was never in play for what’s been dubbed UFC Freedom 250. In Jones’ version, they negotiated plenty, yet what they came up with was a lowball offer. The arthritic hips? Everyone could agree on those, though Jones said he was dealing with it through stem cell procedures in preparation for a fight on the South Lawn. Dana just said that Jones is done.
Advertisement
The #FreeJonJones campaign became part of a brooding subtext Tuesday as a panel of Rousey, Carano, Francis Ngannou and Philipe Lins set forth on a new venture, aimed to at least make the UFC feel its presence in the MMA space. There were plenty of shots fired, and they were mostly coming from Rousey herself. Alluding to Dana being a victim to the UFC’s new way of thinking, she spoke freely for him when asked if he got mad at her after seeing her comments about the … um … White House card being a little too milquetoast.
“He knows the White House card sucks,” she said with a laugh. “He knows they were pushing this for over a year and it fell extremely short of expectations. He was so upset about it, he was talking about a fight falling out of it the day before. I can guarantee you he’s not happy with it either, and he’s the one who taught me through example to speak my mind.”
Ronda was definitely out there speaking her mind on that MVP dais. She mentioned she has so much “love and respect” for Dana, which was why she alerted him first when she struck the deal with MVP and Netflix. She said the UFC tried to get her and Carano on the promotion’s last ever pay-per-view at UFC 323, but Carano wasn’t quite ready. After that, negotiations cooled. Carano, who smiled nervously as Rousey went off, looked happy that somebody else was doing the heavy lifting.
She mostly sat back and let Ronda work.
“This is the biggest fight in MMA right now,” Rousey went on. “There are no two people in the sport with more international name recognition except for me and Gina … except for Conor [McGregor], but no one’s going to sanction that. This isn’t a charity card. This isn’t a throwback, nostalgia card. This is the biggest fight in the sport right now, and it needed to happen now. This is fate between us.”
Advertisement
Echoing the sentiment in the air that UFC athletes are underpaid, she got a little heated, especially when she uttered the figure.
“This company just did $7.7 billion,” she said, “there’s no reason they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage.”
It was like she’d been pulled back for a decade on a bowstring and finally let go.
“It’s why champions like Valentina [Shevchenko] are selling pictures of their t****** on OnlyFans,” she said, not afraid to issue a few strays to make her larger points.
“Once [UFC] moved into the streaming model, it’s just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore,” she said. “Dana is legally beholden to the shareholders and to maximize shareholder value. Unfortunately, now that they’ve taken the reins of the company away from [Dana], it’s barely recognizable now.”
Advertisement
‘Tis the season, alright. Ngannou, who was announced on the card Monday after making tens of millions in the boxing ring and with the PFL, joined in the chant.
“We are not employees; we are independent contractors,” he said. “And we should be able to get what we deserve — and if we don’t get [it], we will be able to have a right to walk away and go look at other options.”
He, too, mentioned the word “lowball.” It’s the hottest word in the UFC lexicon currently. Of all the highballs, eight balls and lowballs, he knows how bad Jones hates settling for the last option. He expressed on social media that Jones deserved the $30 million payday “after everything you’ve done for the sport,” saying the UFC “should be rolling out the RED CARPET for you.”
Advertisement
“I’m happy I’m out of that,” Francis said at the MVP podium, where he himself represented the kind of freedom he was speaking on.
And when MVP co-founder Jake Paul got on the mic, he called the MMA landscape the “Wild West.”
It’s not a league he’s starting, he told us, it’s a movement to pay fighters what they are worth.
“I believe we have massive opportunity to disrupt the whole space, and to put fighters first, to get them to the pay they deserve, to the platform they deserve,” Paul said. “Because I believe the UFC is dying and MVP is here to take over.”
Is the UFC dying? That might be a stretch, but the UFC is under fire right now for the way it conducts business.
Advertisement
Jon Jones. Tom Aspinall. Ronda Rousey. These are names who’ve been synonymous with the UFC for a long time, and each one of them could’ve been described as loyal.
Only not to a fault.
