Filed under: UFC
TORONTO — UFC president Dana White is well aware that Rashad Evans stepped over the line with his pre-fight trash-talk when he referenced the Penn State sex abuse scandal while taking a verbal jab at former Nittany Lions wrestler Phil Davis on Wednesday.
As White told reporters following Thursday’s UFC 140 press conference, he made sure Evans knew it too.
“We talked.” said White, who called Evans’ remark “one of the dumbest things you could say,” in light of the child abuse allegations against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. According to White, he didn’t have to convince Evans that he’d made a mistake in using the story as a topical reference point at the UFC on FOX presser in Chicago yesterday.
“It’s not like I’m dealing with stupid people here,” White said. “It’s one thing when you’re dealing with dummies. When you’re dealing with people who are really stupid, it’s tough to talk to them. But when you call a guy who’s an intelligent guy, he gets it. He knows.”
Evans brought the heat on himself when exchanging words with Davis at the press conference, telling the former NCAA Division I wrestling champ: “I guarantee you’ll be the first one to take a shot cause I’m going to put my hands on you worse than that dude did them other kids at Penn State.”
Evans, who wrestled at Michigan State, later told MMA Fighting that he has nothing against Davis, but was merely trying to play up a rivalry for entertainment value.
“I have plenty of respect for him as a fighter and as a person,” said Evans. “But when it comes to competing with me, I gotta let my mouth go a little bit.”
He let it go too far this time, White said, but the UFC president sounded hesitant to take any official punitive action over the remark.
“The whole thing with me is people are looking to me, and I saw a couple of stupid stories that were written, people who want attention — you know who those people are,” White said. “What do you want me to do? You want me to have our lawyers draw something up and I’ll come out and read it to you guys? You know, he said something stupid. It’s probably one of the dumbest things you could say. He gets it, and he knows it was a stupid thing to say, and we’ll see what happens.”
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