UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is none too pleased with Dana White and the UFC. He recently accused Dana and the company of bullying him, failing to properly market him, and threatening to close the entire flyweight division among other things.
As expected, Dana White told his side of the story to TMZ.
“When he did his deal, he didn’t want Pay-Per-View. He wanted upfront money, no Pay-Per-View. He wasn’t very confident in his abilities to sell Pay-Per-Views. He has the lowest-selling Pay-Per-View in the history of the UFC in the modern era.”
And now he wants Pay-Per-View points, so what’s the issue? Dana is right in that Johnson doesn’t sell Pay-Per-Views, which means giving him $1 for every buy would likely cost the company less than giving him money upfront. The company is just cheap despite selling for billions.
“I think a fight between him and T.J. Dillashaw would be something that people would actually be interested in and could sell Pay-Per-Views and could make money. But he absolutely refuses to fight the guy. It’s ridiculous.”
Dana completely misses Johnson’s point if he thinks DJ doesn’t want to fight Dillashaw. He’ll fight him, he just agreed to fight with Ray Borg prior to Dillashaw’s name coming up. He doesn’t want to take away Ray’s title opportunity and doesn’t think it’s right that Dillashaw, who has never fought at flyweight, should jump the line. But delivering on a promise is something Dana doesn’t know much about.
So the idea that Dillashaw vs. Johnson would do significantly better than Johnson vs. anyone else is farcical.
Johnson is also hellbent on breaking the title defense record, which he’ll do if he wins his next title fight, and is concerned about Dillashaw not making weight. Also, if Johnson has the worst buyrates in the modern era, Dillashaw has the second worst. So the idea that Dillashaw vs. Johnson would do significantly better than Johnson vs. anyone else is farcical.
“We’re not marketing him right? We built a TV show around him. ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ was about what an incredible fighter he is. We put him on Fox many times and tried to build him and it is what it is. It’s not me.”
The Ultimate Fighter stopped be relevant 10 years ago, so building that around him is like Friends trying to spin-off Joey today. And putting the guy on FOX and actually marketing him are two different things.
“The media claims he’s the pound for pound best fighter in the world. I think Conor McGregor is the pound for pound best fighter in the world.”
Keep in mind that ten seconds before Dana said this, he called Demetrious “the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He also not only called Johnson the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world in April, he considered him “the greatest of all-time.”
“Never once did I threaten to shut down the flyweight division. I told him we had been talking about shutting down the division for years.”
Dana White, ladies and gentlemen.