On cancelling UFC 152 -
Dana White: This is probably one of my all-time lows as being President of the UFC over the last 11 years. For the first time in 11 years we're gonna cancel an event. This Saturday's fight at Mandalay Bay is being cancelled.
Dan Henderson has a partial tear in his MCL and couldn't continue. He tried to train. He tried to continue to work out. He saw doctors and there was nothing we could do to save that fight. One of the things that you guys have heard me brag about a million times, how UFC doesn't have to cancel events, we can always find a replacement. For somebody to fight Jon Jones on eight days' notice is tough to do, but to be totally honest with you guys, one guy did.
Not only when we called him did he say, 'I'll take the fight,' he said, 'I'll fly to Las Vegas tonight and fight him," and that was Chael Sonnen. Chael Sonnen accepted the fight with Jon Jones, wanted the fight bad. As of 8-9 o'clock last night, we had a fight. We here at the UFC started working, creating different commercials, PR started to crank up. I was gonna do this call and obviously it was gonna be a different call this morning
but the one thing that I never thought in a million years would happen, happened. Jon Jones said, 'I'm not fighting Chael Sonnen with eight days notice." Again, something that's never happened in UFC history. A guy who's a world champion and considered one of the pound-for-pound best turns down a fight. That has never happened either. So right now what's happening is this fight is cancelled. It'll be
Jon Jones vs. Lyoto Machida on Saturday September 22nd on the Toronto, Canada card at
UFC 152.
On his call to Jon Jones -
Dana White: When [Jon Jones] got the call he said, 'I've got to sit down and talk to my coaches.' His coach Greg Jackson says there's no way you take this fight.
You don't take this fight on eight days' notice. It would be the biggest mistake of your entire career. Wow. Chael Sonnen is a 185-pounder who wants to move up to 205 who hasn't trained a day for this fight and the fight is in eight days and he says he'll fly to Vegas tonight the supposed pound-for-pound third best fighter in the world, the world champion. How much faith do you have in your champion and your guy? I literally just bumped into Greg Jackson the other day and I was kinda joking around about some of the things I've said. I'll tell you what. I'll go on the record saying this guy is a ****ing sport-killer. This guy is from another planet. I've never even seen anything like it in my life.
On Jones Jones -
Dana White: It's in Jon Jones' head that he didn't prepare for this guy. I don't know know, man. In the history of the UFC,
Tito's been the most difficult guy in the history of the company since I've been here and Tito Ortiz didn't not take fights.
On how Jones will be viewed -
Dana White: I don't think it's great.
The first fight ever cancelled in UFC history since we owned the company and the first champion to ever turn down a match.
On Jones calling himself a business man -
Dana White: Let me tell you what. (laughs) I always laugh when I hear a fighter say, "I'm a businessman."
No you're not. You're a fighter. You see moves like this and other things where if they were real businessmen, we wouldn't be having this conference call right now.
On why the event could'nt be salvaged -
Dana White: Because we're eight, seven, I don't know how many days away we are to the fight and this thing went right down to the wire right before we got on this call. We don't have time. We're strapped for time. If Dan Henderson would have gotten hurt two weeks' ago, this would have been a different story.
But eight days and Jon Jones acting like this and all this other bull****, we can't do it.
How this changes his relationship with Jon Jones -
Dana White: A lot
The ramifications of cancelling the show -
Dana White:
It's a major, major deal. We lose ****loads of money, money that's already been spent. We're eight days out. We spent ****loads of money on this fight. I could sit here and we've been talking about it all morning about how far this goes and how bad it hurts but I don't know because we've never done it. I don't know what I don't know yet.
On why card needed to be cancelled -
Dana White: I don't know. I just think when we're selling the Jon Jones title fight. This card had to be cancelled. Where we're at right now,
the thing had to be cancelled. We've never ever had a fighter refuse to fight somebody especially someone considered by many to be the best pound-for-pound fighter int he world, just flat out refuse to fight a guy. Never happened. We're in a business where if I say to you guys all the time, every day when I get out of bed crazy **** happens that we have to deal with. Everyone keeps saying, 'There's too much this, there's too much this." We build this. We know exactly what's going on in this industry next week, next month, everything else. Things pop up like injuries and apparently guys who don't want to fight anybody but it has nothing to do with the way business has been run. I've spent the entire morning and the afternoon yesterday at Fox and then today dealing with this bull**** and we've got things going on that has nothing to do with too many cards and cards stretched too thin.
How his relationship has been affected with Jones -
Dana White: Jon Jones has been one of these guys with as much as he's won and all the things he's accomplished in a short amount of time, he burst onto the scene a year and a half ago. He's ripped though the top guys.
He's been a champion that hasn't been very popular, you know? I don't think this is going to do wonders for his popularity. As far as his relationship with us, me and Lorenzo are both disgusted.
His feelings on Sonnen -
Dana White: Chael's a lunatic. I called Chael and he said he'd fly to Las Vegas tonight and fight him at Mandalay Bay or any other casino he'd like me to fight him at. Did I think that the Chael Sonnen fight made sense as far as the title and everything else? You know, no, but these guys have been talking smack on twitter back and forth to each other and it's a fight I thought people would be interested in and Chael is the guy who accepted it. I said, "Yeah, I'll make this fight." Chael was pumped.
Chael was excited for this fight. Chael told me [Jones] was a mental midget and he'll beat him mentally first. He also told me, Chael said, "Tell Jon Jones there won't be any spinning back fists in this fight. Chael Sonnen only falls down once." (laughs)
If he thinks Jones is scared to lose his belt -
Dana White: I don't know.
I don't know why a guy who is a world champion and considered by many the pound for pound best wouldn't fight anybody. It's baffling to me. I've never seen it by anyone else. I don't know.
On Sonnen -
Dana White: I also said Chael will not talk his way to the title but the thing about Chael Sonnen is: this is the type of guy that when things are normal and going the way they should go and guys aren't getting injured, Chael Sonnen would have had to beat three nasty guys at least to get to Jon Jones,
but in the heat of the moment when things are going down, this is the guy that you pick up the phone and call and he will fight anybody. This isn't a guy that just talks and shoots his mouth off. A guy that others won't fight on short notice, Chael Sonnen says "I'll fight him tonight." He's that kind of a person. He puts his money where his mouth is. He talks the craziest **** I've ever seen talked in this sport and he goes out and delivers. He's willing to step out and fight. I really respect that about the guy.
Financial backlash -
Dana White: It's huge. The prelims were gonna air on FX and all the marketing that's been spent. We don't play. We spent some money. We've got billboards in Time Square, New York, all the money. You've seen television ads that've been running. The list goes on and on.
It's a massive, massive hit.
On contract stipulations -
Dana White: Being a fight promoter and being in the business that we're in,
you can't make somebody fight. I can't make you fight. You're either a fighter or you're not. This is what we all do for a living. I have a building here in Las Vegas that 250 people have been busting their ass working hard to promote this fight. Not just for Jon Jones but for everyone on this card. Good for you Jon Jones. You've got some money and can afford not to take this fight but there are a bunch of guys on the undercard where this is how they feed their family. This is how they make a living and the UFC has spent ****loads of money to promote this fight and you don't feel like it for whatever reason. You won't fight. I can't make you fight, but it's probably not a good idea to not do it.
On what Jones had to say about fighting Machida -
Dana White:
I can tell you this right now. He ain't turning down the Machida fight. If I get a call today that says he doesn't want to fight Machida, we'll have another conference call later this afternoon. I'll have another media call and it won't be good. We should have the bout agreement back right now.
If Chael would have fought someone else to save the card -
Dana White: No, who else would I bring in? This was a title fight for for the light heavyweight title. The thing I know is,
if I did the Chael Sonnen fight, there would be people that liked it, people that wouldn't, but here's what I do know. Chael Sonnen would have showed up, fought his ass off and tried to win. Chael Sonnen wants to be a world champion. That's the kind of guy I like. Those are the type of fighters the fans like. They want to be world champions. I'll ****ing call Chael up right now and say the fight was tonight and I've got a whole roster full of guys like that who will fight at the drop of a hat for any opportunity. Those are the guys that I like. Those are the guys that I respect and those are the guys that built this company and this sport.
On what he expects -
Dana White: I don't know what to expect. I expect Machida to come out like somebody possessed. He's made it very clear to me and to his management through me about how much he wants this fight back. He feels he did a lot of **** wrong in the first fight and obviously he did in the Jones fight and he wants to correct that. We'll see what happens.
I don't know what to expect from Jon Jones anymore.
How other fighters will react -
Dana White:
This is one of the most selfish, disgusting decisions that doesn't just affect you. This is affecting 16 other lives, their families, kids are going back to school. The list goes on and on of all the things, the money that was spent for fighters to train and the list goes on and on. Like I said, I don't think this is going to make Jon Jones popular with the fans, sponsors, cable distributors, television network executives or other fighters.
On Greg Jackson -
Dana White: I'm very confused by his whole ****ing business plan. I don't give a **** what Greg Jackson thinks.
This guy is a ****ing weirdo man. Turning down a ****ing fight, saying if he doesn't turn down a fight with Chael Sonnen it would be the biggest mistake of his entire career because he's not ready for that guy? Greg Jackson should never be interviewed by anybody ever again except by a psychiatrist.
