12 Questions with Dana White

The British tabloid newspaper The Sun recently published Dana White’s answers to 12 questions posed by Sun readers on everything from Michael Bisping’s future as a Middleweight to the flaws in the 10-point must system for scoring MMA fights.

Dana’s always-interesting perspective was on display once again. A few tidbits:

Dana doesn’t seem crazy about “building a fighter’s brand” (ala Tito Ortiz) and instead respects fighters who are willing to fight whoever is thrown in front of them (he lists Anderson Silva, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Chuck Liddell, Sean Sherk and Brock Lesnar as such).

He thinks Bisping’s potential as a Middleweight is “huge” and says he told Bisping to drop to 185 “when I first met him.”

He says when Wanderlei Silva arrived in the UFC, Silva told White that the UFC’s Light Heavyweights were a lot bigger than PRIDE’s best Heavyweights.

He says Sherk has done his time and deserves a return to UFC action. “He was stripped of his title, he was suspended, he was fined…He has lost the ability to earn a living for six months already…What else am I supposed to do, drag him into the street and stone him?”

He hates open weight grand prix tournaments because, among other things, “the best fighter never wins these dumb things anyway.”

He thinks Anderson Silva has the best odds of any current title holder to still be holding his title a year from now.

He denounces the notion of cross-promotions. “Why would I cross-promote with these organisations? They suck.”

His all-time favorite fight? Matt Hughes vs. Frank Trigg II (April 2005)—the one where Hughes comes back from a crotch shot to slam Trigg and win—hands down.

His opinion on Fedor? “Fedor isn’t a real fighter, he’s a complete joke. He’s fighting middleweights and guys who have absolutely no business fighting—and he’s looking like s*** doing it…He can’t live with anyone in the top five in the UFC and that’s why he’s not here.”

His opinion on Randy leaving? “...We give Randy Couture that huge opportunity (a return from retirement to fight Tim Sylvia for the title) and now Randy Couture is refusing to give a fighter like Antonio Nogueira that exact same opportunity he was given. ‘Captain America’ needs to honour his contract and honour fighters like Nogueira. You would expect him to do the honourable thing.”

He talks about a fight card that was discussed by UFC executives but ultimately didn’t happen where “fans play matchmaker and choose the fights on the card.” He said that, in the end, the fans already decide the fights. “If I can’t figure out what fights the fans want then, hey, I am pretty f*****.”

He agrees that the 10-point must scoring system that was developed for boxing is flawed when applied to MMA. The problem with changing it, White says, is that “unlike in the UK, the people who regulate sports over here—guys like the Nevada State Athletic Commission—are the government. These guys are part of the actual government of the state, so doing something as huge as changing the whole system for scoring won’t happen just like that.”

And finally, he announces that the UFC is in the process of establishing an official ranking system so that fans can see who is in line for a title shot. “…I said we’d never do that because I figured people would say our rankings are biased. But, when you look around at some of these other rankings that are out there, I think we probably will do our own after all…(I) have no idea when we will get to that, though. I wouldn’t look for any rankings anytime real soon.”