Recently, Dana White had a harsh response for former middleweight champion Luke Rockhold’s demand that the stacked UFC 185-pound division receive some official clarity after the entire roster had been put on hold for the not-so-anticipated Michael Bisping vs. Georges St-Pierre title fight, which was supposed to take place sometime after October.
The UFC granted that when White finally announced that Bisping vs. St-Pierre was off the table and “The Count” would taking on the real number one contender in surging Cuban wrestling specialist Yoel Romero. That seemed like what the rest of the middleweight division and a majority of the fans wanted, yet White seemed to take Rockhold’s request out of context when he fired back by saying Rockhold had just been knocked out and didn’t deserve a title shot, comparing him to a welterweight who just earned one:
“Listen, I was thinking about this when I talked to some of the media here yesterday: A lot of the guys are talking about deserve, deserve, nobody deserves anything. You have to earn it here, you know what I’m saying?”
“These guys want to sit around, you got Rockhold screaming, “I deserve this…’ you got knocked out in the first round, you don’t deserve anything, you have to earn it and Maia earned it.”
While it’s true that Rockhold’s massive upset loss to Bisping in the main event of last June’s UFC 199 was the bout that set the division into its current state of upheaval, Rockhold was quick to respond that he didn’t say he deserved a title shot coming off of a loss.
All he wanted was a clear direction for the division, which could legitimately be described as one of the deepest in MMA right now; one that gave the many talented competitors in its ranks something definite to fight for. Having St-Pierre, who was of course the most dominant welterweight champion of all-time, fight for the middleweight belt coming off of a nearly four-year long layoff and never having fought in the division, wasn’t deserved in Rockhold’s mind:
@danawhite I never said I deserved a title shot. I said we (middleweights) deserve clarity. We deserve something to fight for.
— Luke Rockhold (@LukeRockhold) May 16, 2017
@danawhite "You have to earn your way in this company"? Tell me how did GSP earn a middleweight title shot? Think before you run your mouth
— Luke Rockhold (@LukeRockhold) May 16, 2017
White then responded to Rockhold, saying that while he never usually responded, St-Pierre never lost his belt, and it was a fight that both wanted (along with the fans, or so he said), so perhaps Rockhold should stick to fighting and leave the matchmaking up to the UFC:
@LukeRockhold pic.twitter.com/3buw7twqEv
— Dana White (@danawhite) May 16, 2017
There’s certainly no doubt that St-Pierre was and still is one of the company’s biggest stars and pay-per-view draws, so it’s really not that hard to imagine the UFC booking him in pretty much any fight he wants for his return, especially during a year so star-starved as 2017. It’s also hard to deny that his premature ‘return’ for a press conference announcing the bout in March was entirely too early with him planning on fighting in October or later, and that undoubtedly lead to the promotion being forced to cancel it in an effort to move the middleweight division along.
So while White may have a point or two, Rockhold didn’t specifically ask for a title shot, and it seems everyone is glad that Bisping will finally defend his title against a rightful number one contender.
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