At the end of every Ultimate Fighting Championship event, promotion president Dana White always peaks the interest of media and fans alike with his post event comments, and it was no different following Saturday nights UFC 154 event.
At the post fight press conference White offered comments possible future matchups between GSP vs. Anderson Silva, the poor referring in the bout between Patrick Cote vs. Alessio Sakara, the Nick Ring vs. Constantinos Philippou bout which failed to happen, an interim title defense by Renan Barao and a recently announced heavyweight bout between Alistair Overeem vs. Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva.
On making a Superfight happen between champions Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva, White feels pretty positive he can make the bout happen and is looking at May for the match.
“I’m going to make the GSP (vs. Anderson Silva) fight.”
“(GSP)’s lumped up, he’s sore. He feels like he just got hit by a bus I’m sure. He hasn’t fought in eighteen months. I’ll make this fight.”
In response to GSP’s ‘no committal’ response to the media about the fight, White felt it was more talk than anything. “This guy isn’t sold, this guy doesn’t seem like he wants to do it, this guy is blah, blah, blah. They will fight and it will probably be in May, or around May. I told you the three options, Toronto, Dallas, Texas or Brazil.”
A middleweight bout between Patrick Cote and Alessio Sakara ended in controversy after Sakara ended things with several hammersfists to the back of the head of Cote in the plain view of referee Dan Miragliotta. The Quebec judges would award the victory to Cote via disqualification.
“Horrible reffing. Stood there and watched, I counted twice. It was between seven and nine illegal punches to the back of the head. It’s a little weird, I think the way they handled it was great for the commission to do that but it probably should have been a ‘No Contest’ is what it should have been. You don’t award the guy the win for being knocked out. It should have been a ‘No Contest.’”
In the post-fight press conference, White did say that he wants the two scheduled for a rematch, which was mentioned by Cote in his post-fight interview following the bout.
On the last minute cancellation of middleweights Nick Ring vs. Constantinos Philippou, after Ring became too ill to fight following the weigh-ins, White told the gathered media that both fighters would receive their show money for the event.
When interest from the media turned to interim bantamweight champ Renan Barao, who is the last current interim champ, White stated that he hoped to have the Brazilian in the cage soon.
“We were talking about Barao defending his title now. So whether he wants to wait or not, we’re going to go back to him soon probably here and have him defend it.”
White also offered up an opponent, naming Michael McDonald (15-1) as that challenger.
Current 135-lbs champion Dominick Cruz is currently out with a bad knee injury and isn’t expected to return till sometime next year.
Despite the fact that heavyweight Alistair Overeem is still under a nine-month suspension handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, White did note that the UFC has received permission to promote a February bout between Overeem vs. Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva for UFC 156.
“We asked the commission, can we start setting up a fight for him, but he’s still got to go before the commission.”
“I think Alistair has been doing the right thing as far as the commission is concerned and doing all the things that he needs to do to get back in their good graces. It’s looking positive and optimistic because he’s been doing what he’s supposed to do.”
No exception will be made though, for UFC welterweight Nick Diaz who is sitting out a twelve-month suspension from the NSAC for a second positive marijuana test.