The president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White, got honest with his fans (and haters) during GQ Sport’s latest episode of “Actually Me.” From ranking his top five UFC champions (Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, and Georges St-Pierre, for anyone keeping score) to whether we'll get a McGregor-Mayweather rematch (hopefully not), White said it best himself: “I told these guys at GQ there isn’t any question I won’t answer.”
The ex-fighter-turned-fight-exec was particularly excited to share his opinion on the topic of fighter pay. “Believe me, these guys [UFC fighters] get paid what they’re supposed to get paid. They eat what they kill,” explains White. “If you don’t like it, there’s a simple solution to this problem. Go start your own MMA organization.” White also shared his thoughts on pirating pay-per-view streams. “Everyone was fucking laughing at me when I was talking about this. We caught a lot of people. People weren’t laughing when they got caught, ” says White. “Stealing is stealing.”
White explains that he’s willing to spend big when to put on a good fight—like the one he wanted to put on, years ago, between Fedor Emelianenko and Brock Lesnar. “We offered Fedor Emelianenko an ungodly amount of money, and they didn’t want the fight. I don’t know what to tell you,” says White.
His on-and-off feud with longtime boxer Oscar De La Hoya, meanwhile, might be back on—sort of. “I feel like De La Hoya’s apology was sincere, but there is no way he and I can ever be friends again,” White says. “That guy did way too much damage for us to be friends again.”
