(“I sip the Pink Drink to keep from killin’ y’all.” / Illustration via Financial Times)
Hey guys: Have you ever cared about something so little that it makes you super upset, to the point where you have to go on a three-minute profanity-fueled tirade about how much you don’t care? I mean, that’s something we all struggle with, right?
During a UFC 174 press conference scrum yesterday, UFC president Dana White was asked about the September 5th UFC show that will be taking place just miles away from a Bellator event in Connecticut. At first glance, it seems like the kind of counter-programming mischief that the UFC used to pull on rival promotions like Affliction. (Hey, if you have the resources to put on an MMA event just out of spite, go for it.) But as White explains, Bellator has nothing to do with the UFC’s 9/5 date, and you’re stupid for thinking that, and Bellator lied about drawing 100,000 PPV buys for “Rampage vs. King Mo.” Yeah, that too. You can watch the entire rant on MMAJunkie.com; a mostly-complete transcript is below:
“If you guys really think that we look at Bellator and give a shit what night they’re going on and what they’re doing, we don’t. That’s the date that we landed on. We get the dates from FOX. We don’t pick our own dates, we get the dates. They give us the dates they need us to go on. It’s determined by what other programming they have and what’s going on that night.
“There’s nights we’re gonna fall on the same night as World Series of Fighting, too. And I’ve got no beef with those guys. I don’t give a shit what night Bellator goes on, they make no difference to me whatsoever. The day I start worrying about what Bellator…or, ‘I’m gonna go on the same night as Bellator ’cause I want to crush them.’ They’re getting crushed already by themselves. They can go on their own fucking date anywhere. It’s not like me going on the same night is going to do any more damage to Bellator than was already done…
“But if that’s what you really believe, you’re a fucking idiot. You know what I mean? If you really believe that we want to go on the same night as Bellator because…I could give a shit where Bellator goes. What night, what day, or whatever. It’s not like Bellator’s out there killing it and we’re going to go in and take some…I mean, it’s just stupid to even think that. We end up on the same night as many different sporting events, sometimes boxing events we land on the same nights. There’s tons of events and tons of other MMA organizations. I could give a shit about them.
“[I cared] back in the old days, back when there was a competitive landscape out there and there were things going on. [But] I honestly, I literally never think of Bellator, I don’t give a shit what Bellator’s doing or what’s going on with them. It’s not like Bellator is some organization you have to look out for. I mean, let’s be honest here. Seriously, look at the cards they put on and what they’re doing…Nobody is going out of their way and saying, ‘Oh fuck, a big Bellator event is on tonight.’ I literally never think about Bellator and I could care less what they’re doing.”
Here’s Dana talking more about Bellator — the promotion he honestly, literally doesn’t care about — and and their reported six-figure PPV buyrate:
“Yeah [the buyrate] shocks me, because no it didn’t [do 100,000 buys]. Did [Rebney] ever find out what the gate was? No one ever got back to him on the gate? He didn’t know what the gate was. He doesn’t know what his gate was, but he did 100,000 pay-per-view buys. The guy is a fucking clown. Could you imagine having a night where you guys ask me, ‘Hey, what did you do for a gate tonight?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘When will you know?’ ‘I won’t.’
“Yeah, you don’t want to give out your gate, and yeah, you probably don’t want to give out a real pay-per-view number, either. It’s like, that’s why you guys are asking me if I give a shit about what they’re doing and if we’re trying to go the same night to destroy them. I’m doing two events the same night sometimes on opposite ends of the world. Like I really give a shit where they are or what they’re doing.
“I knew the real [Bellator PPV buyrate] number before they knew the real number. That’s their business. It’s like their gate. That’s his business.”
But really, Dana White doesn’t care at all about Bellator. At all. Literally. Methinks the Dana doth protest too much?