Dana White explains why he was so upset with Conor McGregor in late 2020.
Dana White and Conor McGregor have always been on good terms, but things almost took a turn for the worse after ‘The Notorious’ released a private exchange between himself and White on social media in September 2020.
It wasn’t so much the fact that McGregor had publicly shared their DMs but that he got Ultimate Fighter 1 winner Diego Sanchez involved, whom White has always had a tremendous amount of respect for.
“We were in a really bad place then,” White said about his relationship with McGregor in a recent interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto (h/t Damon Martin). “I was really upset. It wasn’t because he put out private messages. But we were talking about another fighter and I like Diego Sanchez a lot and I have a lot of respect for Diego Sanchez. I care about Diego Sanchez. So I was very upset about that.
Despite being really upset with McGregor at the time, the UFC president says both he and Conor are on great terms heading into 2021 and that he’s excited about what the future holds for the Irishman.
“I talked to Diego face-to-face about it. Being the great human being that he is, [it’s] all good and then I was really, really upset with Conor. Conor, I fixed that, we talked and we got through it and we’re in a good place now. Me and everybody are always in a good place as far as business goes,” White said. “Tito Ortiz fought here for years. We hated each other. He fought here for years. Business is always good but that doesn’t mean that we’re good.
“We’re in a good business place and personally, Conor and I are in a good place right now.”
McGregor will return to the octagon on Jan. 23 to take on Dustin Poirier in the UFC 257 main event at UFC Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, and White would ideally like to see the former double champ fight at least another two times after that.
“In a perfect world for Conor to fight two or three times this year and one of them is a title fight, it would be awesome.”