Miletich’s career would have been vastly different if he’d stuck with the UFC, been the TUF4 coach, and never got on the doomed ship IFL… he clearly made a poor decision. If one of Arum’s fighters left Top Rank to fight for Golden Boy, you bet he’d call them a dummy. If one of his fighters left Top Rank to fight for a new, untested promotion that had no one familiar with the fight game running the show… yeah. He’d say something a lot worse than dummy.

I don’t recall anyone ever calling White a genius. What he is is a pragmatic business man who has done more for the sport he loves than any other single individual. Pat Militech was a strong fighter, and has become a good trainer, but to compare his impact on the sport of MMA with Dana White is simply overstating Pat’s case.

We all know many people have personal beefs with Dana. Randy Couture attempted to circumvent a binding legal agreement, and to characterize that series of events as a personal conflict with Dana White is again a serious oversimplification. Tito Ortiz has said the UFC denied his claim for medical attention, but Dana’s version makes a lot more sense to me.

I will join Angry Mike and Stan in saying it’s a tough business world out there, and while Dana White might not be the most articulate and genteel spokesperson for the UFC, it has been his vision that has informed the growth of the sport we all enjoy. White was on with Jimmy Fallon last night, and aside from how painfully bad Jimmy Fallon is, Dana uttered not one profane word, and did nothing more offensive than hawk the new UFC video game.

The attacks on White and the UFC read to me as childish and ill-informed. To lionize the Strikforce and Affliction organizations is to deny the observable facts that aside from Fedor Emelianenko, the vast majority of the best and most talented MMA fighters are either in the UFC/WEC, or trying to get there. I don’t really care about Dana White’s personality or media persona; what I care about is that the organization he built and runs continues to bring us, the fans, the highest quality MMA events so we can all enjoy this great sport. I watch all the others as well, and enjoy any good fights, but the UFC remains the big leagues of MMA.

WAR DANA.

He gave an interesting interview at the NASDAQ opening with Ariel Helwani the other day, mentioning that Miletich’s beef started with him being promised the Ultimate Fighter 3 coaching position opposite Carlos Newton, and then having it subsequently given to Ortiz/Shamrock. Dana admitted he was wrong to back out on the promise, but Miletich left the organization rather than wait around until TUF4. Given that Ortiz/Shamrock was such a huge ratings boom, I don’t think you can really hold it against Dana that he went that direction. If the IFL had worked out, I don’t think Miletich’s grapes would be quite so sour.

he’s made some good decisions and also made some freaking terrible ones. buy pride and shut it down? and NOW the ufc is going to try and go back to japan once the whole japanese mma infrastructure is dismantled and functioning elsewhere? and then their lawsuit against the former owners of pride because they were too ignorant to properly do their due diligence when they bought the company.

i’m sure the entire serious mma fanbase was absolutely thrilled with the way that dana handled the randy couture debacle with fedor and the ufc blackout and banning of him and rediculous lawsuit trying to prevent him from cornering his fighters.

there is an endless list of turmoil left in dana’s wake and who is to say the sport wouldn’t be further ahead if the ufc worked in concert with other promoters to bring the fans the best mma possible, rather than systematically trying to destroy them and push the very boundries of the law with their fighter contracts. at the end of the day dana’s vision is about dollar bills filling his mansion and not about how great the sport can be. there will be no superbowl for mma.

If Dana wasn’t such an insecure self serving attention whore this wouldn’t have happened. What MMA people want is less spotlight on Dana White and his halfwit diatribes and more on the fights/fighters.

He may have more money than Pat, but whose fault is that Dana is a complete douchebag? I guess boxercise didn’t help him conquer his demons over Mommy not loving him enough.

And a very strong argument can be made that Pat has done just as much for the sport as Dana has, Pat just hasn’t done nearly as much to harm it.

We should take bets on who is going to be the first person to publicly assault Dana White.