Dana White on Fedor: “We all have to thank him for getting rid of Tim Sylvia…”
August 14, 2008 by Adam Morgan
In Kevin Iole’s latest piece on Yahoo! Sports, he interviews Fedor Emelianenko, a man that many feel is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Fedor says himself that he doesn’t think he’s the best and is hesitant to name a fighter that he believes is the best. But the real gem of the article is a comment from Dana White regarding Fedor, his status, and his demolition of Tim Sylvia a few weeks back:
“He’s not the best pound-for-pound fighter, not even close, but he’s one of the four or five best heavyweights,” said White, who undoubtedly would be singing Emelianenko’s praises to the heavens the moment he got the stoic Russian’s name on a UFC contract.
“But we all have to thank him for getting rid of Tim Sylvia. He’d been stinking out the joint the last couple of years and Fedor did everyone a favor by beating him so easily and getting rid of him.”
Y’know, Dana’s right. As good a fighter as Sylvia is, ever since he won the UFC heavyweight title he became an extremely tentative fighter. On his way up the heavyweight ladder, Sylvia put together a highlight reel of knockouts and earned a reputation for being aggressive and finishing fights on the feet. However, once the strap went around his waist, he was content to ride out decisions and play it safe in order to keep his status as champion. Even after he lost the title to Randy Couture, his first fight back against Brandon Vera was a snoozefest. Why? Because it was for a title shot.
Listen, I have a lot of respect for Sylvia. He’s a guy who is not athletically gifted and has made his own success from the bottom up in MMA. But nothing is worse to Dana White than a fighter who fights not to lose. To lose in exciting fashion in the UFC is better than to win in boring fashion. Sylvia has gone on record as saying that he would like to come back to the UFC someday but when your former boss thrashes you in public like that, it’s hard to believe that you’ll ever be welcome back.
I would not be upset if I never had to see Tim Sylvia fight ever again. Ive never liked him…his fights are booring…what kind of douche bag goes out in public wearing a championship belt around their waist anyway?
Tim Sylvia SUCKS!
Here we go again with Dana White! Why is he such a d__k?? I mean have a certain level of professionalism. I agree, Tim Silvia is a snooze. But as the president of the company you need to keep certain comments and ideas to yourself. Now you see why I call him the mini Vince McMahon??? Way to Dana, a real “munson”!!!
dana may be right in that sylvia was putting on boring , tentative fights, i.e. “stinking up the joint” but he’s just trying to manipulate public opinion about fedor who is as best as anyone can reasonably tell the no.1 heavyweight in the world and i personally think the pound for pound best fighter ( who has he lost to again? anderson silva, bj penn, georges are all great fighters but have losses, fedor has destroyed everyone put in front of him, heath hearing, nog, cro cop, tim sylvia in 36 seconds! ) dana white’s two time ufc champ, how many bullshit statements has dana white made about ( everything, but.. ) tim sylvia when he was in the ufc? he completley kissed his ass
Yeah, he is boring and fake his showoff stomach looked no fat!
That is a bullshit comment on Sylvia by Dana. Tim isn’t perfect, but he shows up to fight, makes weight, and did what the UFC asked…
Yeah sure, Fedor is one of the 4 or 5 best HW’s… Fedor is THE BEST HW EVER! He’s number one with an f’n bullet. Tell me one guy that Fedor fights where anyone (Dana included) would actually bet a lot of money against Fedor?
I agree with the above post, where the second Dana signs Fedor, the brakes will screech and he will do a 180 and start talking about how Fedor is the greatest fighter of all time.
Fedor has been fighting for a long time now. He’s had one fight stopped because of a cut and he’s won every other fight. He’s beaten the current UFC champ multiple times and he just made one of it’s former champs look like a guy they pulled out of the stands. Is there anyone on the planet other than Dana that doesn’t recognize Fedor as the obvious #1 HW in the world?
Typical Dana.
Tries to manipulate the situation so that he looks good for not chasing Sylvia’s signature after his contract expired, instead of the obvious situation whereby your (recent) former HW Champion was absolutely demolished in the blink of an eye, not with a lucky shot, but an absolutely demoralising ass kicking finished by a choke locked in with strength alone..
I dunno. I rate Fedor. I think any MMA fan in their right state of mind does.
As time goes on however, I grow more and more tired of UFC management and the decisions they make. As i’ve stated before.. I guess im just a softie for the SPORT, not the business.
Fedor is one of the best 4 or 5 in the world. Yeah.. I wonder what that makes the current UFC HW Champ. (Lose the interim already) You know, the same guy that got completely and utterly dominated in every phase of MMA twice by the guy that’s nowhere close to the best P4P fighter, and 4th or 5th best heavyweight.
Comments like these are why Dana gets hated on by both fans and fighters alike.
Justifiably.
Dana, stop the hate. You know you loved watching Fedor vs Sylvia.
You probably “went to the bathroom” during the UFC fight and snuck into the backstage TV room that night just to watch.
The only people who would have missed that fight were blind.
You gotta love it. Until Dana said negative stuff about Sylvia, nearly every post on this site trashed Sylvia–boring, one-dimensional, a doofus, etc. Now Dana says the exact same thing, and everybody trashes Dana. I’d bet my next paycheck that if Dana had spoken favorably about Sylvia, the posts would have trashed both of them.
[...] Dana White on Fedor: “We all have to thank him for getting rid of Tim Sylvia…” [...]
Pretty sure most people are trashing him for his comments about Fedor, which are completely, thoroughly, and utterly absurd. So if he’s going to regurgitate idiotic talking points that have zero basis in reality, people have the right to call him on it.
Nice try though.
Ok Heres the question. If nothing else makes dana crazy except a fighter who fights not to loose then why the hell do i keep getting flack for saying the same thing about Lesnar who not only should have put Herring out of his misery he should of done it in the first round. Lesnar had him in mount at least three times and didn’t finish. He fought a fight not to loose and it was boring except for one punch. The hypocrisy is laughable. Fedor would kick lesnars ass. He’s a walking talking human growth hormone experiment. He’s bad for the sport and is a bad role model for anyone.
Go ahead someone defend him i love ignorance lol
I would love to hear the thoughts from the author of this article
Yeah, that akward goof is a waste of human space as far as I am concerned. (hope he doesn’t read this)
But all poopiness aside, the dude has fought some good fights and beatsome good fighters. So why is he such a douche? I can beat Fedor…….Ooops.
Randy can’t beat me……Oops!!!
I can’t beat his small time blogger……..Ooooops!
this……..damnit.
Always something .
I’m not a Lesnar fan by any stretch, but for his 3rd mma fight, not finishing Herring, who is very experienced, is not big deal. It was a must win for Lesnar and he dominated. He should be credited for that, even if he played it a little safe.
He was a question mark after the Mir fight and now he’s a factor all of a sudden. Even Fedor is talking about fighting him. That’s a big turn around in one fight.
I think he’s going to be a threat to any HW that doesn’t have strong submission skills since he can take anyone down.
More bullsh*t from Dana White, surprise surprise.
I don’t know why you print his interviews any more, i dont know why anyone does. People say he’s entertaining? A big part of being entertaining is unpredictability. Everything he comes out with is the same predictable nonsense. Pick a topic; i’m fairly certain we could foretell what he’ll say.
He clearly isnt worried about any kind of fan backlash but logic dictates that if the UFC President continually disrespects popular fighters then their fans will in turn be less faithful to the UFC.
This will be a strange comparison but a lot of the things he does is comparable to a ruthless dictator, maybe he is. Everything he says is all part of the UFC brainwashing of the casual fan; “if the UFC president is saying it then its probably true”, “Noone seems to be calling him on his outrageous statements so i guess its a fact” I think MMA personalities need to start ridiculing his nonsense, are they scared of how far his power extends by any chance?
White just calls it like he sees it… except that he does probly see that Fedor is #2 or #3 p4p in the world, he just spins it to stay all businessy.
Sylvia made his money, will fight a few more times and then hang it up and spend his time relaxing, well he’ll spend more time relaxing because he was already half asleep in the cage all the time.
White doesnt call it like he sees it. He merely thinks of the financial implications of everything he says therefore nothing he says should be taken seriously. I’m afraid (for me at least) he’s had far too much personal exposure over the past year and is now extremely dull.
Fedor beat Mark Coleman twice, Kevin Randleman, Tim Sylvia (36 second), Antonio rodrigo Nogueira twice, and interesting thing is that every one of them was UFC champion. That fact speaks more than thousand words.
I like Dana White. Even the doucheness most of the time. That being said he is clearly insane if he thinks that Fedor is the #4 or 5 ranked HW. He must think the fans are mindless dumbasses to believe that. Really it’s insulting that he thinks he can get away with such a moronic statement. I realize he is the attack dog of Zuffa and the Fertittas but, I think that need to reel his crazy ass in.
He was right about Tim Sylvia. The ‘Snooziac’ has been put out to pasture, which is a win-win for all of us.
The question to ask is, what sort of ridiculous praise would Dana have heaped on Tim if he had won? He would have thrown a huge party welcoming him back into the UFC and possibly put him back in line for a title shot.
But Tim lost, and Dana treated him like shit, like he does anyone else that he has no use for.
Dana White is not stupid. He knows just how good Fedor is and has known for quite some time. At the end of the day, Fedor makes the UFC $0.00 so why should Dana speak so highly of him when he doesn’t have to? From a human standpoint, he should at least say something respectful of Fedor, which he has.
Business is business and Zuffa can decide when and if they want to do bring in Fedor. I think they should because without him, their Champion is still #2. I hope we get to see Nogueira vs Fedor 4 in the Octagon someday.
I’ve heard from various outlet’s that Sylvia pissed off the Zuffa brass before his bout with Nogueira. Money and his attitude being at the center of it. We all know Dana will say whatever he wants, when he wants. This is simply just another case of that. I dout we’ll ever see Tim-eh back in the Big Show again. But if he earns it then so be it.
Some day all of this will come back to Dana White. Silvia has never, to my knowledge said anything remotely similar to or about Mr. White…so why, except for ego gratification, would White suddenly turn on Silvia?
Poor sportsmanship.
“Listen, I have a lot of respect for Sylvia. He’s a guy who is not athletically gifted and has made his own success from the bottom up in MMA.”
I disagree about him not being athletically gifted. Look at him. His size alone helped him beat guys like Monson. A lot of fighters would love to have his natural gift of his height and weight. I think his main weakness is his lack of aggression.
Size does not equal athleticism. You could say Silvia is genetically gifted, but he is clearly not a great athlete.
It is Dana White’s job to keep people talking about the UFC and MMA. Mission accomplished.
“”"At the end of the day, Fedor makes the UFC $0.00 so why should Dana speak so highly of him when he doesn’t have to?”"”
He doesn’t have to speak highly of him. He also doesn’t have to degrade him or make asinine statements like “Fedor is a farce” “Maybe a top 4 or 5 HW” etc.. the list goes on.
Also, I’m so tired of people defending Dana White’s moronic hyperbole in the name of business. You can run your business without being a world class douche.
Millions of people do it every day.
“To lose in exciting fashion in the UFC is better than to win in boring fashion.”
I can think of a few other fighters (Vera, Machida) who need to realize that. Losing once in awhile never hurts your standing if your fights are good.
Honestly, I appreciate Dana White more and more. How many businessmen out there are underhanded, tell you what you want to hear, and then stab you in the back? I honestly think Dana is incapable of lying. Basically, any thought that enters his head comes out his mouth immediately. I wish my former business partner had been more like Dana.
Dana White is realizing that there is competition out there, he knows it and the true fans know it ex. Dream, Elite XC etc. He’s just full of BS!!! Soon enough more big names will leave the UFC for more $$$ and then he will bash them too!!!!
I went and saw Tropic Thunder tonight. Tom Cruise’s performance was awesome IMO and his character kind of reminded me of Dana White. Not exactly, but enough to make it even funnier. For those who go see that movie, try picturing Dana in that role.
Errr Cathedron, i promise this will be my last post regarding Mr White but “this guy is incapable of lying”? Right, so you honestly believe that his true opinion of Fedor is “in the top 4 or 5 heavyweights”? Wake up lad, this is getting ridiculous.
Thats funny he said snoozefest. Sylvia got dominated but thats because Fedor is the best.
[...] couple of years and Fedor did everyone a favor by beating him so easily and getting rid of him.? Dana White on Fedor: ?We all have to thank him for getting rid of Tim Sylvia?? :Five Ounces of Pain Wow Fedor gets upgraded to Dana’s top 5. So nice of him to give Timmeh a good swift kick while [...]
Dana is crazy pumping iron guy but try to explain that he knows everything…..who he has now?? noguera, mirr, they fought out side US and they loss ( mir lost in england, fedor beat noguera twice).