UFC president Dana White always keeps an eye on any potential competitor that could cut into his company’s MMA business.
Over the years, White has battled with several promotions and even ended up buying a few of them as the UFC continued to be the biggest MMA organization in the world.
Bellator MMA is the newest promotion to make waves in fight world, especially after signing a deal with Spike TV where they took the place of the UFC who previously had a partnership with the network.
Now Bellator is also following in the UFC’s shoes by producing their first ever pay-per-view headlined by two former UFC stars, as Tito Ortiz takes on Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in the main event.
In the past when promotions like the now defunct Elite XC would put on a major show, the UFC would find a way to counter program by putting on a card either live or rebroadcast to battle for the MMA viewers on that night and time.
This time around when Bellator lands on pay-per-view on Saturday, Nov 2, they won’t find any opposition from the UFC.
To hear White tell it today when he spoke to reporters after the conclusion of the UFC Fight Night 26 press conference, Bellator really isn’t even on his radar.
“No, not at all (not going to counter program Bellator).” White stated. “I’m sure you guys saw when this thing came out, when they did their press conference, all they talked about was me. What are they going to talk about? That fight? Well you guys have lost your last 10 fights, uhh how do you think this is going to go? Well, I can tell you this one of us is going to win.
“Obviously they need money, good for them. Let them do their thing.”
White fired back at Bellator by also pointing out their up and down ratings since moving to Spike TV earlier this year. While they have peaked at over a million viewers on a couple of occasions, Bellator shows have gone through plenty of hills and valleys since moving to Spike TV.
As of right now, White doesn’t see any reason to be concerned about what Bellator‘s doing, and they just aren’t a threat to his business plan.
“How’s your competitive spirit feeling? My video blog does more f—king viewers than their television show does,” White said. “I’m not feeling very competitive.”
Now to be completely fair, White’s video blogs that are part of the UFC channel on YouTube do routinely pull in over 200,000 views, but Bellator 97, which was the event where the promotion announced the Ortiz vs. Rampage fight, averaged 697,000 viewers over the three hour broadcast.
Regardless of the numbers, White just isn’t spending much of his day worrying about what Bellator does, who they sign, or what they are doing on television.
Even when Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney takes a couple of back handed slaps at the UFC’s pay-per-view model as he did recently during a press conference, White just brushes it off his shoulder and says he should focus on his own company instead of bashing the opposition.
“I saw that Bjork was talking some smack, and I was just like dude shut up and run your business. That’s over,” White said. “You probably should have done that in the beginning when you had some legs to stand on. He needs to shut up and just run his business. They’re hurting.”
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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