Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) heavyweight champion, Stipe Miocic, has not been the biggest fan of promotion president Dana White, thanks to a chip on his shoulder that came in the wake of his UFC 203 win over Alistair Overeem.
That’s when Miocic discovered “The Reem” banked $200,000 more than him for their respective efforts in Cleveland, which at the time was understandable because the hulking Dutchman was an international superstar and Miocic was … well, just some dude who cleaned toilets at the firehouse.
But according to promotion president Dana White, Miocic is very well respected within the upper ranks of the organization and he’s not really sure why the sassy ex-champ continues to hold a grudge against management.
“I don’t know why, Stipe always feels like we’re disrespecting him, which we’re not,” White told UFC Unfiltered. “We have a lot of respect for Stipe and I think he feels like it took him a very long time to get his title shot and he felt it took him longer than it should have. Then once he got it – every time I turn around he feels disrespected. He’s anything but disrespected. The complete opposite.”
Miocic finally got the payday he wanted when Daniel Cormier bumped up a weight class and challenged him at UFC 226. But losing his title and watching the Brock Lesnar “shit show” that ensued once again left him fuming.
“You saw that we set up the fight with Cormier to fight Brock,” White said (transcribed by MMA Junkie). “That would have been Stipe if Stipe won the fight. No disrespect to Stipe. It was just something that was in place before that fight even happened.”
And disrespected (ex) champs don’t get opportunities like this.
Miocic may never be happy with the way UFC is run, but if he wants to put things into perspective, he can take a look at this fellow heavyweight to get an idea of what real disrespect looks like.