Were Dana White's Rants Against Me, The "Piece Of Shit," Just A Smokescreen?
Or The Scoop Dana White Offered Variety Doesn't Pass The Smell Test
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Today I comment on Dana White’s “exclusive” story for Variety and how it possibly relates to White’s rants against me and the MMA media.
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Perhaps I’m seeing a conspiracy, but I don’t think so.
Not that long ago UFC president Dana White appeared on a handful of Instagram live chats to talk about various UFC related subjects. One thing White fit into each of these appearances was an attack on yours truly.
Here’s what happened that cause White to lash out at me.
On March 25 Variety published a story that Endeavor was laying off 250 people, including some UFC employees. I tweeted this story and wrote something about how White should check with his bosses before saying he’s not laying off employees. I also aggregated the story for Forbes, writing the headline “Layoffs Hit UFC.”
Not long after I published the story the editors deleted it. The main beef was that I didn’t cite the Variety source story as a “Report” in the headline. I’ll own that mistake. However, my feeling is that’s the only misstep I made as far as aggregating a story from another source.
Below is a screenshot of the original Variety story, which the publication updated to remove the UFC reference shortly after the story hit the site. It needs to be noted that Variety did not show it updated the story, which I think is an important thing to keep in mind.
After that, White raged against me.
“This scumbag posted a story that says ‘UFC hit with layoffs,’ and he was literally gloating about it. First of all, it’s not true. I’m going to tell you guys again: Most of what you read is not true. Literally these scumbags write lies and this guy was gloating about it and saying stuff like, ‘Hey Dana, you have bosses now. You should check with them before you whatever.’ No I don’t. You don’t know anything about this fucking situation, and you definitely know nothing about the sport, you jerk off.”
“And for somebody who’s supposed to be a reporter to be gloating about people losing their jobs … I said it before, you piece of shit: Nobody will lose their job at the UFC. Nobody is getting laid off. It’s not gonna happen. The other side of Endeavor laid some people off. I’m not laying anybody off. It’s not gonna happen.”
I never gloated over the layoffs because I’ve been laid off and that sucks no matter the circumstances. If I gloated over anything it was that White often portrays himself as having to answer to no one, not even the co-CEOs of Endeavor who own most of the UFC.
In most of his diatribes — I think there were three or four — White never named me or Forbes. That changed when he went on Frank Warren’s Heavyweight Podcast.
“You have some of these scummy, slimy, weasel motherfucking media guys out there literally saying…so the other half of our company, Endeavor, laid some people off, so this guy wrote a story for Forbes. You would think that a story in Forbes would be correct and there would be fact checking and all this other kind of stuff. No, he wrote, ‘Dana White was gloating about not laying people off and now he has to lay people off.’ No I’m not. No fact checking, no calls, no nothing. Basically, this guy wrote a story that was false that I was laying people off. And he was happy about. He was happy about. He was excited that he could write a story that I was going to take jobs away from people and it wasn’t fucking true. You’re a piece of shit. These are the type of people we are dealing with in the media these days. It‘s unbelievable. It’s disgusting.”
If you notice White never mentioned Variety. At the time I found that telling. My suspicion was that didn’t occur because Variety is a useful site and magazine for Endeavor. I also thought it was easier for White to attack a freelance writer than it would be for him to go after Variety.
Well, what do you know, last night White offered an “exclusive” story to Variety about the UFC potentially hosting events at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. This story came shortly after White spoke to ESPN about the May 9 event. During the ESPN interview it would have been very easy for White to give the Apex scoop to his “partners.” He didn’t. Instead he saved that tidbit for Variety.
My suspicion is that there was a bit of give and take in getting Variety to remove the reference to UFC layoffs from its original post and that perhaps Endeavor/UFC promised Variety a scoop for quickly updating its post and not noting the change in the story. This is something that TMZ does for access according to a 2016 story in The New Yorker (which is worth reading), so it’s not out of the question that it happened here as well. I searched Variety to see if White had ever given the site an “exclusive” before. I could not find another incident.
I’ll own the fact that I made a mistake by not citing the Variety story as a report, but White’s attacks on me and the MMA media were unwarranted. Now that the other shoe has seem to hit the floor, it seems as if a lot of White’s histrionics were just for show. White’s diatribes were a way for him to control the narrative and make the MMA media look bad while at the same time erasing the fact that it was actually Variety who was responsible for the story that layoffs would hit the UFC. I want to say I’m surprised, but something just seemed excessive during those rants, even for the touchy and volatile White.
I don’t want to come across as being petty here, because I don’t think I am being petty, but that description seems to fit White to a tee.
