UFC president Dana White was not happy about Mike Jackson’s performance against CM Punk.
The main card of UFC 225 was opened up with a welterweight matchup between CM Punk and Mike Jackson. Both 0-1 entering the contest, it was Jackson who ended up with a unanimous decision win, scoring his first victory at the professional level.
The manner in which he won, however, did not please UFC president Dana White. During the post-fight press conference, the outspoken company executive expressed his dissatisfaction with how “The Truth” seemingly did not go for the finish.
“Michael Jackson I’m not happy with. This guy was acting like a goofball tonight,” White said. “You get this opportunity to come in and fight CM Punk and you’re doing like bolo punches to the body on top? Never looked like he was trying to finish the fight, ever, right? Looked like he could have finished the fight a few times, never tried.”
“I don’t know what that guy did for a living before we gave him the shot, but whatever it was, he needs to go back and do that again. He’s 0-2 as far as I’m concerned.”
In another media scrum, White shared his thoughts on how a possible fight with Jackson and Artem Lobov would go down.
Dana White told us in the scrum that he was not happy with how Mike Jackson carried himself.
I asked him about Jackson’s request to fight Artem Lobov next pic.twitter.com/pQezvh8yLp
— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) June 10, 2018
“Artem might kill him,” White said of Jackson. “That might be the first death in the UFC. I think that’s a bad fight for Michael Jackson, and I think Michael Jackson should go back to being a reporter or whatever the hell he did before he came in and goofed around tonight.”
Prior to UFC 225, Jackson fought Mickey Gall in February 2016, where he lost via rear-naked choke in just 45 seconds of action.