UFC president Dana White has offered his take on the Stephen A. Smith controversy within the mixed martial arts (MMA) community.
Smith caught a lot of flack for suggesting that Donald Cerrone “quit” in his 40-second loss to Conor McGregor at UFC 246 last month. He received backlash from the likes of McGregor himself, and longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan. Now, speaking to MMA Junkie, White has offered his take on the situation, not necessarily agreeing with what Smith said either.
“I didn’t hear him, I didn’t hear what he said,” White said. “I did hear that there was some stuff going back-and-forth, which is gonna happen. One of the things, when we bought and built the UFC, that we always did, being fight fans ourselves – I’m a huge fight fan, Lorenzo is a huge fight fan, Joe Rogan is a huge fight fan – and one of the things that we hated was, on HBO Boxing, and some other boxing that they would do, listen, you’re tuning in and buying the pay-per-view (PPV) cause you love these guys and you respect these fighters, and you’re a fan of the sport.
“The last thing you want to do is hear somebody ripping them apart. It’s not – I’m not into it, Rogan’s not into it, and you don’t see that in the UFC. There’ll be times when I’m pissed off at a guy and I’ll voice my opinion on what he did, whatever – or if a fight is really bad and somebody did something. But what we don’t do is, when a fight is over and a guy loses, we don’t go in there and rip them apart.
“Just not our style, we’re fans, we don’t do it. So I think Rogan was reacting to that because, that’s our philosophy here. For Stephen A. Smith, that’s his thing, that what he does. It’s gonna happen. You’re always going to have people who have difference in opinions and especially when you have two very opinionated guys like Stephen A. Smith and Joe Rogan.”
White is currently in Houston, Texas for UFC 247 this weekend (Sat. February 8, 2020). Jon Jones headlines against Dominick Reyes, with “Bones’” light heavyweight title on the line.
What do you think about White’s comments on Smith?