Comments on: Dana White claims media coverage of drugs in MMA a “witch hunt”

By:

Zack — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:51:46 +0000

Sam…the poster “Saucy” who posted the Dana White response to Gross on the UG is Beth. She works for the UFC and has been posting on the UG for a long time.

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FightOpinion.com - Your Global Connection to the Fight Industry. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:44:46 +0000

[...] Here’s Sam Caplan to respond the rest of the way. [...]

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garth — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:16:26 +0000

bah. dana white’s trying to weasel out of the spotlight with the tried-and-true “kill the messenger” routine.
Press guy: “Mr. White, your heavyweight champ just tested positive for [insert unbelievable amount of alligator testicle smoothies here], do you have a comment?”
Dana White: You vultures just wanna ****ing eat my ****ing corpse! You want to ruin a ****ing good thing! (jaw clenches) ****ing witch hunt! (further jaw clenches) You’re a ****ing jerk! Tito Ortiz sucks!
Press Guy: “Wha?”

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Ivan Trembow — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:37:28 +0000

The whole “witch hunt” angle sounds remarkably similar to Vince McMahon saying that the media is picking on him for asking questions about steroid use in WWE.

“Steroids have been here forever, and they’re going to be here forever” is also something that Vince McMahon, Jerry McDevitt, and Co. have said numerous times in so many words.

The whole “What the (expletive) do you want me to do to these guys?” aspect of this is getting old quickly, as the “what to do” is very simple: Institute random, year-round drug testing.

Zuffa could hire WADA or USADA to carry out such a program using a small fraction of the company’s annual profits, or they could use the same amount of money to fund the athletic commissions’ ability to carry it out.

With Kenny Florian, Kalib Starnes, Rob McCullough, and other Zuffa-contracted fighters in calling for random, year-round drug testing (and numerous other fighters saying that they would welcome more testing in general), it just highlights how unusual the situation is for a major sport.

Usually, if the management or owners in a given sport push for comprehensive drug testing, the athletes and their union fight against it (paging Donald Fehr).

In MMA, the athletes are publicly calling for year-round testing and the management has repeatedly said in interviews that they don’t know what else they can do besides supporting the athletic commission’s legally binding suspensions that they’d have no choice but to support anyway. It’s exactly the opposite of the way it is in most major sports.

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Drewdoo — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:22:27 +0000

I have to disagree with White’s comments about taking away a fighter’s ability to earn a living. Doctors, lawyers, stock brokers, mortgage brokers, and the rest of us have to follow the rules of our professions every day. If you break an important rule you risk losing your job or the license that is required to keep it. All of the fighters know the rules. If the gamble and lose, fine, they can sit out a year or whatever the punishment is.

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el boxeo — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:12:31 +0000

white has too much too lose by fighting roids in his sport.. he cant control what fighters put in thier bodies but he can control what they take home as far as paychecks… and fact is they dont get paid too much which makes the chance of using steriods a great for fighters and if dana thinks that the loss of 10k paydays is enough to deter fighters from using roids he is nuts…

the tables are turned against dana and ufc cause its the fighters who can make or break them… and a couple of more high profile positive tests and your gonna have a problem…

imo let everybody roid up

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Kodiak — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:12:48 +0000

I can’t see how these words from Dana are anything but a step in the wrong direction with regard to the steroid issue. He can gripe all he wants, but the bottom line is simple, and you nailed it: don’t do drugs.