SEATTLE — With Bellator’s ratings on Spike TV taking a dip in recent weeks, UFC president Dana White is responding like a shark smelling blood.
The recent news that Bellator is considering having Quinton “Rampage” Jackson box aging legend Roy Jones Jr., in White’s view, is proof Bellator parent company Viacom is thrashing around trying to figure out a way forward.
“They have no f— clue what they’re doing,” White told reporters Saturday night. “When they’re in this business, right, and things are going well, you start grabbing for anything. You have a bunch of guys who don’t know anything about fighting at the network. Networks acquire content. They don’t become promoters.”
Bellator is considering a Jackson-Jones fight as a potential pay-per-view debut. To which White basically says, “good luck.”
“Nobody wants to watch them on free TV,” White said. “They’re pulling terrible ratings. If they want to get into the pay-per-view business, get ready to lose some money boys. Real money.”
White, of course, had his own meeting with Jones prior to UFC 162. Anderson Silva had expressed a longstanding interest in boxing Jones, but those plans went out the window with Silva’s upset loss to Chris Weidman.
“If they want to get Roy Jones, it’s going to cost them a ton of money,” White said. “And maybe they get it, but at the end of the day, how many buys do you think that fight does? I don’t know what kind of deal they’re going to come up with with the cable systems, but, they’re grabbing for whatever they can get, you know what I mean? I hate to smash these guys because I still like some of the people over there. And there’s some of the people I don’t like.
“The big problem I have is, they’re just copying,” White continued. “There’s no, they don’t have anything original over there. Their reality show is a ripoff of The Voice and The Ultimate Fighter. It’s, I can’t believe The Voice hasn’t sued them yet. They’re just reaching, they’re grabbing.”