Dana White interview: Showtime runs Strikeforce, not Scott Coker
Published by Zach Arnold on October 23rd, 2009 in Current Events

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Dana White did an interview with AOL Fanhouse (http://mma.fanhouse.com) on Thursday and was asked questions on various topics including comments Bernard Hopkins recently made about MMA (more on that down below) and whether or not Dan Henderson will sign with Strikeforce. When this topic was brought up by the interviewer, White sounded off. Here is the transcript of White’s latest interview and take note of his continued disdain for Showtime.

START

INTERVIEWER: “You’re having a co-main event fighter who just so happens to be a heavyweight who just so happens to be Latino, Cain Velasquez, of course. How important is that for you?”

DANA WHITE: “It’s huge. The things all lined up to be here and uh in LA and have him fighting, you know and now it’s up to him to win, I think that uh you know the Mexican community loves their fighters, man, and uh they’ve never had a Heavyweight champion. This guy can be the first Heavyweight champion, uh, for the Mexican fans.”

INTERVIEWER: “In combat sports in general, there’s never been a Heavyweight boxer. Chris Arreola had a chance last month at the Staples Center, it didn’t work out for him. Do you think that Cain has what it takes to become a champion? Do you see that in him?”

DANA WHITE: “I think he does. He got a lot of criticism in his last fight, which I thought was complete bullshit. Um, I thought he looked great in that last fight, fighting a guy with as much experience as Cheick (Kongo) and being the striker that he is, he took everything that Cheick Kongo had, when he got hit with those big shots he reacted perfectly to them, and you want to talk about power? He was picking Cheick Kongo up from around his waist, over his head from the ground. Cain Velasquez is very talented, very powerful, and uh the problem he’s going to have on Saturday night is dealing with the experience factor and the size of Ben Rothwell.”

INTERVIEWER: “Let’s quickly talk about the main event. How difficult is it for you as the promoter to sell a fight when both of the main event fighters don’t speak English?”

DANA WHITE: “You know what? People ask me that all the time. We are having no problem at all. The reality is, you don’t show up to hear people talk, OK? When you’re a fight fan, you show up to see great fights. I don’t care if the guy is a mute, OK, I’m not there to hear him talk. If you can find a fighter who has you know he’s a good looking guy, he’s got incredible charisma, he speaks really well, and he’s one of the best fighters in the world, OK, homerun, you know you win. But reality is, people are going to tune in Saturday night to see two of arguably the best strikers in the business, you’re not going to see any wrestling, you’re not going to see any jiu-jitsu, they’re going to see punches, knees, elbows, kicks, it’s going to be a I expect fireworks between those two on Saturday night.”

INTERVIEWER: “Once again on Tuesday, Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva said they will never fight each other and obviously this is the question you hear so many times, you really think it’s going to happen though, because I know you say teammates will, you want to see teammates fight teammates, the teammates say that they don’t want to see that happen, you never really had to do it, Jon Fitch is now fighting Thiago Alves, he’s sort of you know bypasses some of the AKA (American Kickboxing Academy) guys once again, do you think that you’ll be able to convince these guys to actually fight each other at some point?”

DANA WHITE: “I think so, I think anything is possible and listen, it’s not about ‘hey I hate you, I want to fight you’, it’s about people think one of us is the best in the world, let’s find out who is. I think it’s absolute bullshit that as a fight fan I want to know who the best is, you know, you’ve heard it a million times, there’s never any emotion, you don’t have to dislike people and Anderson Silva, when he fights guys, is one of the nicest guys in the world when he fights guys. It’s not about disliking, it’s about who’s the best and I believe that it will happen.”

INTERVIEWER: “There’s a lot going on in your world. Obviously at the top of everyone’s mind, Dan Henderson, I heard you mention that you sort of ran into Scott Coker last night. Tell us about that story.”

DANA WHITE: “Well, I ran into Dan Henderson’s manager, his manager his lawyer, whatever, he was at the restaurant I was at with Scott Coker, so.”

INTERVIEWER: “Did you say hi to Scott?”

DANA WHITE: “No, I said hi to his lawyer.”

INTERVIEWER: “Are you confident, though, that Dan, you know when we spoke in New York at Pinkberry, I asked you point blank, Dan Henderson, will he fight again in the UFC? You said yes, very simple answer, are you still that confident?”

DANA WHITE: “Well, here’s what I feel, I guarantee you the deal that we offered him is a great deal and I don’t see uh I don’t think that they have the money to match it. If they do, wow, that’s good.”

INTERVIEWER: “So what do you think? Do you think he’ll be back?”

DANA WHITE: “Anything’s possible. Yes. I do.”

INTERVIEWER: “Well, um, your competition in the past has never tried to pluck away some of your top stars.”

DANA WHITE: “Yeah, they have. All of our competition has. They’ve come after our guys you know for the last how ever many years. You know, their whole theory was, you know we can do this, let’s pick a couple of their guys and see if we can do it, I mean look at the stuff that went on with Couture. You think that was really Couture? No. There were other people behind that thing, trying to get Couture to leave, um, and this isn’t one of those situations. You know, that’s why goofball what’s his name uh (Steve) Cofield, Cofield writes this stupid story you know Strikefarce strikes back, they didn’t strike back, me and Dan Henderson didn’t come to terms and now they’re, you know, he’s a free agent, he’s out there talking to them. How’s that they strike back? Yeah, if they were able to afford Dan Henderson, why would they not do it? I don’t think they’re able to afford what he wants them to pay and if they do, I love it, they can have Dan if they want to pay him what Dan wants to be paid.”

INTERVIEWER: “A lot of MMA fans and writers have criticized Strikeforce in particular for the way that they promoted or maybe not so much promoted this upcoming fight with Fedor on CBS, it seems as though you know the UFC, they’re always putting clips out or you’re putting clips out on Youtube, really promoting all the fights on a card. Do you sit back and look at some of the competition and say, don’t you guys figure it out, there’s a little more to this, you have to actually promote these fights? Does that surprise you?”

DANA WHITE: “Here’s the thing you have to understand, if you really think Scott Coker is really running Strikeforce, you’re crazy, he’s not. The knuckleheads at Showtime are, OK? What has Showtime ever done well? Have they done anything well? I mean they’ve been second-rate to HBO boxing, they’ve been second-rate in programming to HBO, they’ve never done anything great so don’t expect any great things out of them any time soon.”

INTERVIEWER: “All right and I asked you in June and you were in Los Angeles you said that on a conference call, you said you’re about to make an announcement that’s going to change the face of Mixed Martial Arts. I don’t think you’ve yet to announce that, so is there any update on that situation?”

DANA WHITE: “It’s coming, it’s still coming, I couldn’t be happier, we’re in a great place and hang tight, I know it took a little longer than I thought it would, but uh that’s the way these things go.”

INTERVIEWER: “Is it a TV deal?”

DANA WHITE: “It’s some big news, we got some big news coming up.”

INTERVIEWER: “We would like to also to your thoughts on Bernard Hopkins. Did you hear what he had to say about MMA recently?”

DANA WHITE: “No.”

(Quotes by Hopkins in an interview with Boxing Scene: “Everybody is different. I don’t want to watch two grown men wrestling with panties on. I’m from the hood, we don’t play that. To me, I’m not buying a ticket to watch two grown men with panties on, sweating, [with] nuts in their face. That’s not me. To compare that to boxing is ludicrous. It’s a porno. It’s an entertainment porno,” Hopkins told BoxingScene. “I’m not wrestling a guy with panties on and his nuts in my face, and they call that a sport.”

“I’m not criticizing people for what kind of entertainment they like. I think most of those people have chains and masks in their closets. There is something out there for everybody. I can understand if 90% of women were going to those things but I can’t understand a grown man sitting there with a couple of guys watching two grown men with panties on, sweating. That’s just my opinion. It’s not a good look,” Hopkins said.)

INTERVIEWER: “He said that he’s not a fan of watching two men, I’m paraphasing here, butg two men with panties rolling around on the cage it’s essentially gay porno is what he said. I’ve no interest in that, people who watch it probably have you know whips and masks in their closet. What do you think of that?”

DANA WHITE: “I like Bernard Hopkins, I’ve been a fan of his, uh, I think what does that tell you? It tells me, these guys are worried about the sport when in reality they don’t have to be. Boxing can co-exist with MMA. Bernard, don’t ask for $15 million next time you fight, stack a card, put more guys on the card, you know, in that stable of De La Hoya’s you’ve got De La Hoya, um, you’ve got um Bernard Hopkins, you’ve got Shane Mosley, you’ve got uh Winky Wright, I mean you’ve got a bunch of talented guys, put on a card with all of them on there! All you guys take a pay cut, you know, don’t ask for crazy ridiculous money when you guys will go out there run around in circles and not fight anyway, you know, you guys will around and jab and run and run so you can make it to the next fight to get your next big pay day, you guys stack the card, actually get out there and fight and give the fans what they paid for and you won’t have to worry about the UFC. I’ll even pay for your fights and watch them.”

INTERVIEWER: “A lot has been made that Big John (McCarthy) is not going to be reffing at UFC 104. Was that strictly a California State Athletic Commission decision?”

DANA WHITE: “Yep, it was. I don’t make those decisions. The commission, the commission could give a shit what I think.”

INTERVIEWER: “So you would have had no problem if he would have been in there?”

DANA WHITE: “Well, I’m uh we’re not on great terms with John McCarthy right now either, you know John McCarthy, listen, the thing is with John McCarthy, he’s a grown man, OK? He made a decision, he didn’t want to be in Mixed Martial Arts any more, he wanted to go into you know it was more about money for him, he wanted to go and uh and uh do television or start his own TV show or do whatever he wanted to do and there’s nothing wrong with that but John McCarthy made that decision and after he did he said some things about you know he basically went out there and blasted all the athletic commissions and said some negative things, it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do.”