Dana White blasts the referee for the finish of the first main event on ESPN+ as part of their new broadcasting deal that kicked off. It was a good night of fights and we did get a finish in the headliner.
Despite this, the UFC President didn’t hold back on how he felt about the referee overseeing this main event that was hyped as a superfight.
Henry Cejudo finished UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw to successfully retain the UFC flyweight title in the headliner of UFC on ESPN+ 1. This event down on Saturday night (January 19, 2019) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This marked the first title defense for Cejudo as the 125lb champion.
There were many including Dillashaw and White who believed that this was an early stoppage but the fellow UFC champion was rocked twice and dropped before being finished on the ground.
White’s Reaction
The UFC boss made it known that after the event, he got an earful of Dillashaw’s complaint backstage about the stoppage.
“He just yelled at me while I was doing an interview when he walked by, ‘That’s bullshit,’” White said to MMAFighting). “I thought it was an early stoppage too. Listen, you’ve got two of the best guys in the world, two world champions, in a superfight. Let them fight, let them finish, and I’m not talking anything away from Cejudo because the fight went 20 seconds and Cejudo busted him up. I’m sure when you saw [Dillashaw] sitting here it looks like he was in a three-round fight, but Jesus Christ, let ‘em fight. Horrible stoppage.”
“I don’t love it when they have local guys in main events, especially a fight this important, a superfight between two world champions,” White said. “Please, please, please commissions, put the experienced guys in there. Give the guys with the most experience because all you do is you hurt the fighters and you hurt the fans. Your job is to do the exact opposite, so I don’t love it. Honestly, I don’t love it.”
The belief is that Cejudo would move up a weight class in order to do an immediate rematch against Dillashaw to challenge for the bantamweight title. However, White wouldn’t make anything official on Saturday night.
“I said we’ll see what happens, I didn’t say I’d have an answer on Saturday,” White said. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
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