Dana White Unleashes Tirade on Ex-UFC Champion: "It's a Bunch of Bulls***"
UFC President Dana White broke his silence on ex-UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and his move to the 'Professional Fighter's League' (PFL).
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White appeared at the UFC Vegas 73 post-fight press conference where he remarked that Ngannou's PFL deal "makes no sense to me":
"Based on what I know about the deal, which is not much. It makes no sense to me.
"You're going to pay a guy not to fight for a year. It's just not what we do here [in the UFC]. The day that we released him, I knew exactly what was going to happen, and Francis [Ngannou] wants to take zero risks; he doesn't want to take any chances."
White continued to allege that Ngannou fled the Jon Jones fight in the UFC, not because he was afraid, but because "he doesn't want to take any risks":
"He obviously didn't want to take the chance against Jon Jones, and after we saw what happened with Ciryl Gane, I don't blame him. I think the outcome would have been exactly the same, and I'm sure most of you do, and I'm sure Francis does too.
"The media makes it sound like I'm saying 'He's afraid of him [Jones]', I don't think that he's afraid of anybody, it's just the fact that he doesn't want to take any risks. PFL is going to get this guy to train for a boxing match that may not even happen and they may not be involved in, how does that make any sense?"
In an interview with 'The Mac Life' on May 17, Anthony Joshua's promotor Eddie Hearn explained that Joshua was unphased by an Ngannou boxing match, and that he considers the fight "a little bit gimmicky".
White referred back to Hearn's interview and denigrated Ngannou's attempts at securing a boxing match with "AJ", explaining that "gimmick" fights "are one of the big problems with boxing right now .... and that's not what I do here, that's not what I do."
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The UFC President continued his critique of Ngannou, claiming that the UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell had many fruitless discussions with Ngannou to make a deal with the UFC:
"I put on fights with the best fighters in the world, and fights that people want to see. Francis could have done a deal here, Hunter [Campbell] threw the kitchen sink at that guy.
"Hunter went to more dinners with Francis Ngannou, and did everything in his power to try and get this fight done, and Francis thinks he's in a position where he thinks he's got some Conor McGregor / [Floyd] Mayweather fight on his hands, which he does not!"
Concluding his rant, White exclaimed that he knew "how this story ends", he wished PFL luck, but continued to elaborate on his bewilderment with the deal:
"[Ngannou] is going to this company, he's not even fighting their champions .... their last champion... or maybe [their] current champion, lost to [Marcin] Tybura, right? And then the champion now lost to Jiri Prochazka .... and wasn't even heavyweight.
"Francis doesn't want to fight these two guys now .... this whole thing is just a bunch of bulls***." (Transcribed by MMAKnockout)
Per disclosed details of Ngannou's deal, he has his eyes on the PFL heavyweight tournament and the winner could be a candidate for his first opponent.
Otherwise, Ngannou is part of the "super fight" division, alongside Jake Paul. This means PFL brings in high caliber (or viral) competition for the means of having highly marketable 'super fights' that benefits everyone involved.
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