Dana White taking phone call at UFC 137 press
During a UFC luncheon on Thursday, an annoyed UFC president Dana White stated that since former champ Lyoto ‘The Dragon’ Machida (18-3) turned down a title rematch with Jon Jones, that he would have to face Dan Henderson (29-8) next, and that the matchup would be Henderson’s punishment for not telling promotion officials about his knee injury until it was too late.
MMAFighting.com was on hand and transcribed some of White’s angry comments.
“[Machida] should have taken the fight. We’ve seen it, history always repeats itself. Look how long it took Rashad (Evans) to fight for the title again. So you wanted to fight Jon Jones, you climbed up to the title fight and you don’t take it. Now you’re fighting (expletive) Dan Henderson. Now you might not even get to the (expletive) title again. You lose to Dan Henderson you’re not anywhere near Jon Jones,” White said.
He added, “You jump on opportunities when they’re available. You get a shot at the title, the biggest money fight you can be in, the highest profile fight you can be in. And if you win that (expletive) fight, the whole world changes overnight.”
Facing Jones instead will be Vitor Belfort who takes on the light heavyweight title holder next weekend on Sept. 22 in Toronto, Ontario in the main event of UFC 152.
White gave no suggestion as to the date for the potential matchup between Machida vs. Henderson, but ‘Hendo’ was targeting a year-end return for his next fight.