Shut Up, Dana White

To you and I, being the UFC president would seem to be a dream job.  Sure, it’s a lot of work and there are probably plenty of crappy days at the office, but it beats working in a factory, being stuck in a cubicle or ringing items up at the supermarket, right?  For some reason, though, Dana White isn’t content with just being the UFC president.

He wants to be a TV star.  He wants to be a critic.  He wants to be a fan.

How else can you explain the absolutely dizzying array of inflammatory comments White has made over the years?  The most recent one was White calling out one of his fighters (Nate Marquardt) for “choking” in his fight with Yushin Okami, which could have earned Marquardt a middleweight title shot.  White pointed out that Marquardt fought in the third round as if he felt that he was ahead in the scorecards, and said that he feels like trainer Greg Jackson’s fighters have that problem a lot.

That criticism may seem tame compared to what many critics say about fighters on MMA websites, or even compared to what Dana White has said about fighters and others in the past.  But still, MMA is a major sport now, and the UFC is a huge organization.  Isn’t it time that the president of the UFC started acting the part?

Could you imagine David Stern going to the court after the NBA Finals to hand out the championship trophy, only to mention that the losing team choked and that Kobe Bryant or LeBron James played like crap in the fourth quarter because his coach was encouraging them to play overly cautiously?

How about Roger Goodell putting a video on YouTube where he goes on an obscenity-laced tirade towards an NFL reporter who doesn’t like his policy on fining players for helmet-to-helmet hits?

Why limit it to sports?  Can you imagine Bill Gates coming out on stage for a big product unveiling and going on a rant about his biggest competitor, calling them “Crapple” instead of Apple and altogether acting like an angry teenager?

Dana White will tell anyone who will listen how much he and the rest of Zuffa have sacrificed to pave the way for MMA (and the UFC, of course) to expand, as well as how important it is to him to get the sport sanctioned and accepted.  Yet he turns around and regularly acts in a way that undermines his efforts by validating the stereotypes surrounding the sport and its participants.  This is a guy who goes on a TV with a straight face and says that fighters aren’t neanderthals or barbarians, even though he just got done telling detractors to “fuck off” on his Twitter account for anyone and everyone to see.

Let’s play devil’s advocate, though.  Why can’t White let his opinion be heard? Furthermore, who am I to tell White not to say what he wants about fighters when I do that with every column that I write?  And finally, isn’t MMA a different kind of sport, which means that the unwritten rules of conduct for the commissioners or figureheads of other sports don’t apply?

White needs to keep his opinions to himself on a more regular basis for a couple of reasons. For one, his opinion can’t be taken seriously.  This is a man who needs fighters to put on entertaining fights so that fans will buy pay-per-views, right?  So when he says that fighters need to go for broke, try for the finish or to fight in an exciting manner, isn’t he biased?  You know, since he stands to profit if they put on exciting fights and all.   (And what happens to these exciting fighters when they lose a few in a row because they didn’t play it safe?  They’re looking for work in Japan or competing in Shark Fights, and White moves on to promoting the next man’s fights.)

Don’t even get me started on his unsolicited MMA rankings that he so eagerly offers up to MMA writers during interviews, or his reactions to those who dare to disagree with him by ranking someone who isn’t under Zuffa employ at the top of a weight class.  We’re supposed to think that OUR rankings are wrong because the president of the UFC doesn’t like that we ranked non-UFC fighters?  Particularly when White rarely admits to watching other promoters’ events in the first place?  Am I supposed to believe that White watches more MMA than Jordan Breen?

The last defense is a common one: that White’s brash persona “works”  for MMA, because it’s such an in-your-face sport.  It hasn’t kept the UFC from getting to where they are today, I’ll give you that.   However, are we to believe that because MMA involves people beating each other up, there’s no need for professionalism from those involved?  Yet somehow, Brock Lesnar is reprimanded for offending sponsors and Frank Mir is admonished for going too far with pre-fight trash talk.  How can you have it both ways, saying that you want the sport to be a legitimate one while having the face of the company swearing and acting like a frat boy on a power trip on “The Ultimate Fighter”?

The same guy who will tell you that MMA writers don’t know anything about the sport has no problem with standing in front of fighters who train day in and day out to compete in the cage and telling them that they aren’t “real fighters”.  That is, they aren’t “real fighters” unless they fight in a certain way or accept bouts whenever they are offered, no matter who they are against. Even though White has never fought in MMA, he can call out world-class fighters for not wanting to fight their training partners, ignoring that his insistence shows how little he understands how fighters think, operate and live their lives?

Hey, White knows what he’s doing.  The UFC is a brand, and a powerful one. They’ll sell pay-per-views whether or not Nate Marquardt, Jon Fitch, Roy Nelson or any other fighter White has decided to call out ever competes in the Octagon again.  Fans aren’t going to stop buying pay-per-views just because White isn’t respectful enough to let his own friend, Chuck Liddell announce his retirement (or intent to continue fighting) on his own terms, right?

Whether or not White hurts the UFC with his outburts and rants isn’t even really the point.  White claims that he wants the best for the sport, but he also seems to want to be himself, even if his position should demand a higher standard of professionalism, or if it means taking the spotlight from his fighters (you know, the real stars of the show) from time to time.  If White really cares first and foremost about the advancement of the sport and his organization, maybe he should focus on that instead of slamming his fighters in the press.

In other words, maybe it’s time for Dana White to shut up.

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Tags: Dana White, Greg Jackson, Nate Marquardt, UFC