UFC president Dana White comments on the presser dust-up between Canelo Alvarez and Caleb Plant.
Things got out of hand during the Canelo Alvarez vs. Caleb Plant press conference on Tuesday. Both men faced off and appeared to have exchanged some words when Canelo suddenly gave Plant the Drakkar Klose treatment.
Hard slaps were then exchanged but it was Plant who got the raw end of the deal with a cut under his right eye.
Such incidents are not new in combat sports. But in the UFC, for example, it’s rare for such incidents to escalate the way they did between Canelo and Plant. And because of this mishap, Showtime became an open target for one of its biggest critics, UFC president Dana White.
The ever-outspoken White had this to say when asked about it during a media scrum after the Contender Series on Tuesday.
“I’m not surprised Shitshowtime is… they’re great. Those guys are really good at what they do. From production to press conferences, they’re f—ng awesome,” White said with a sneer.
“How long have you been in the business that you would let two fighters go up to each other face-to-face without somebody there to try to… And then, when it breaks out, there was, like, two men that are there in between them before there’s a man anywhere near it.
“You couldn’t be f—ng dumber than what they did today. Risk a massive fight with one of the biggest stars in the sport by not having the fighters safe. You can’t let two alpha males walk up to each other face-to-face at the f—ng supper club or wherever the hell they were today having that press conference and let two guys stare down without somebody there to break it up.
“But they’re awesome. They do a good job at everything they do so it’s not shocking.”
Some credit does go to White for being able to keep things from going overboard whenever he was on deck at the face-offs. During that one brawl that broke out between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier in 2014, it was the undersized former UFC PR man Dave Sholler who was manning the staredown.
White was also absent during the Jeremy Stephens-Drakkar Klose weigh-in shove, an incident he blamed matchmaker Sean Shelby for.