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Dana White: 'Jones looks like the man'

788 views 6 replies 7 participants last post by  SigFig 
#1 ·
I know this is going to tax your attention spans but, It's a really good interview that touches on a lot of popular topics.

By Sergio Non, USA TODAY


NEWARK -- The leader of the Ultimate Fighting Championship walks a fine line as he promotes his new light-heavyweight champion.

Jon Jones' title-winning performance on Saturday at UFC 128 confirmed his status as an elite fighter. In a business that always needs more stars, UFC President Dana White will do his best to sell the world on the idea of Jones' greatness.

"After what I saw tonight, it looks like he's a mile ahead of everybody," White told a group of reporters after Jones dominated Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. "Sitting right here, right now, tonight, Jones looks like the man."

But White doesn't want to describe a dynasty yet because he needs to find Jones some credible rivals sell tickets and pay-per-views. So White found himself pooh-poohing his own proclamations and suggesting that Rashad Evans might have a chance at beating his erstwhile teammate.

"The reality is, none of us know what the (heck) we're talking about," White said immediately after praising Jones. "None of us know what's going to happen. That's up to Rashad Evans, whether Rashad Evans can beat him or not."

White had his usual post-fight gathering with journalists early Sunday. Excerpts from the question-and-answer session:

Reporter: Dana, you couldn't comment on the coaches (for The Ultimate Fighter's next season, which features bantamweights), but what about Urijah Faber? Is he the No. 1 guy? Is he going to fight Dominick Cruz next?

White: Yeah.

Reporter: So whether they coach or not, that's really going to be a fight?

Yeah, that fight's going to happen.

Reporter: Do you know when?

No, I don't.

Reporter: Dana, can anybody in the light heavyweight class beat Jon Jones?

After what I saw tonight, it looks like he's a mile ahead of everybody. But who knows, man? You never know in this sport.

Reporter: After Lyoto Machida beat Rashad, a lot of people were saying the very same thing...

I agree. Everybody said this is the Machida Era and everything else.

Reporter: Why is this guy different? Why is Jones not going to be a one-hit wonder?

Who the hell knows? Maybe you're right. Maybe he is Lyoto Machida. Who knows? That's the thing: you don't know.

Sitting right here, right now, tonight, Jones looks like the man. It looks like he's a mile ahead of everybody. That's why you just said to me, "You think Rashad doesn't have a chance?" That's up to Rashad. Who knows?

Reporter: When did you have it confirmed that Rashad was going to take the fight?

Tonight? That was always -- I said it on ESPN three days ago.

Reporter: Have you talked directly to Rashad about that?

Yeah. Me and Rashad had breakfast together yesterday morning. That was a fun one.

Reporter: In what way was it fun?

Because me and Rashad got into it. We always get into it.

Rashad and I don't think the same. Our philosophies are opposite ends on how we think things should be done and stuff like that.

Reporter: Does he just not want the fight, or just not now, or...?

He wants to fight me. (laughter) But I've got to get him to fight these other guys.

Reporter: Wanderlei (Silva) against Vitor (Belfort)? It's on?

That's the fight I want. Wanderlei is lobbying for a Chris Leben fight.

Wanderlei turned down Brian Stann too. Wanderlei turned down the fight with Brian Stann a few months ago.

Reporter: If that fight happens, would that fight happen in Brazil?

It would be in Las Vegas. Las Vegas in July, I think. May or July.

Reporter: July 4?

Yeah.

So we offer him the Vitor fight, and now he's on Twitter lobbying to fight Chris Leben. I don't want him to fight Chris Leben, I want him to fight Vitor Belfort. Vitor Belfort has accepted the fight, wants the fight. Now we're waiting for Wanderlei to accept.

Reporter: What is the future for Kamal Shalorus?

I don't know. We'll see what happens. ... He's got a long way to go, let's put it that way.

Reporter: Tonight we saw the promo for the Shields-GSP fight. Now that you guys have the Strikeforce library...

What did you think? Did you like it?

Reporter: It was very good.

Thank you.

Reporter: Will you guys be doing any kind of a Jake Shields package to show UFC fans, maybe, some of his top fights, now that you have that library?

Yeah, we're going to do a Primetime on those two. So everything you didn't know about Georges St. Pierre from the other seven Primetimes, you'll learn in this one. (scattered laughs)

Reporter: You said that you thought that Shogun was going to win the fight. When it started, how long did it take you to change your mind?

(laughs) About a minute and a half. ... You talk about these guys that are breakthrough stars, he (Jones) is the guy.

Reporter: The next season of The Ultimate Fighter, do you think it's a perfect situation to put Anderson Silva against GSP?

As coaches of the show?

Reporter: Yeah.

No. Georges St. Pierre just came off coaching. He just coached the show last season.

I'd want to do that fight sooner than later. The guys who coach have to wait too long.

Normally what happens is, when they go on and coach the show, it builds the fight. That fight needs no building. I don't even have to do a (freaking) commercial for that fight, OK?

Reporter: Dana, what happens if Phil Davis wins his fight next week? How far is he from a title shot then?

He's still a ways. He's got some fights left. But a win over Lil Nog would be big for him, and get him on the map and get him on his way.

Reporter: We saw "Mayhem" Miller was doing the Tweeting on the UFC account. We saw Dan Henderson was here tonight. Are we going to see more of that, the Daley-Diaz...

We ran Strikeforce commercials on the pay-per-view tonight. (shivers, shakes his head, makes an uncomfortable noise)

(laughter)

Yeah.

Reporter: Are you going to be at the Daley-Diaz fight?

Probably not.

Reporter: Is Daley fighting?

He's got a contract. I imagine he's fighting.

Reporter: Jon is just starting a new chapter in his book. Has he changed his life tonight? Has his life totally changed?

His life is going to change in so many ways, starting right now. It's actually scary. When you get to this point, I worry about guys.

There's cling-ons all over this room right now, I'm sure, waiting to just (freaking) barnacle right onto him. He's going to have to make a lot of choices over the next couple of years; personally, professionally. He's in for a very wild, weird, crazy ride right now.

He seems like a guy who's grounded enough, and has the right people around him, to handle it and go the right direction, but you never know. You never know what's going to happen, man.

Because I'm telling you, you wait and see, the people that start clinging onto Jon Jones after tonight.

Reporter: So when you say "cling-ons," you mean like hangers-on, not Star Trek aliens?

Yeah. The dirtiest, nastiest, scuzziest, scummiest, most disgusting human beings on the face of the Earth will start to cling onto this guy and become barnacles and get in his ear and try to pull him in different directoins. This is where it gets ugly.

Reporter: Is that becoming common lately?

Oh, yeah. It's been since day one of this thing, when it wasn't even what it is today.

It's part of the business. It's part of any business when somebody becomes big and becomes popular. I guarantee you he's out there right now and there's people glomming onto him as we speak.

Reporter: I know you prefer to keep financial matters private, but does his contract get ripped up? Do you renegotiate? How does that work?

Would we rip up his contract? I don't think so. (chuckles)

You know what I mean. Like giving an improved contract or something.

I honestly and truly don't know what his deal is right now, where he's at, but I can guarantee you he will not be disappointed with how things are going to go.

Reporter: Have you figured out yet who's going to fight Michael Bisping?

Bisping? Working on it. Everybody's calling Bisping out.

You can have a Bisping tournament.

(laughter)

I think more people want to kick Bisping's (butt) than mine.

Reporter: Have you guys made any decisions with Tito (Ortiz)?

Tito texted me last week and said he's good and ready to go.

(long pause)

Do the math on that one.

Reporter: Alistair Overeem, is he going to get into UFC before the Showtime contract is over?

Alistair Overeem? I don't know. I honestly don't know when Alistair Overeem's contract is up with Strikeforce. If he continues to win and things go good, when his contract's up, then I would be able to sign him.

Reporter: Do you rank him top 10 now?

Oh, because he's under contract, because we own him now?

(laughter)

If you heard any of my interviews this week, I'm still in the same position I was three weeks ago.

Reporter: Just to go back to Cro Cop real quick -- do you expect him to push back? Do you think he'll want another fight, and can he talk you into another one?

Cro Cop? No. I don't think I'd have an argument from Cro Cop.

Reporter: You were planning a show in Japan at some point. Is that still going to happen?

I'm not going to Japan, man. I don't know about any of you guys. There's some serious problems over there.

It's underplayed how devastating this disaster's going to be in Japan. I don't know how their water can't be contaminated, how -- I just think they're going to have problems for years. This thing isn't going to be just a quick, easy fix. It's a big problem, and I think it's a problem that's going to affect other countries.

Reporter: Were you surprised at all with how Eddie Wineland did in the first round against Urijah Faber?

He didn't fly under my radar. This kid's a tough kid and was absolutely, 100% determined to beat Urijah Faber tonight. You saw Urijah Faber hit him with a big shot.

Things start to change as the fight progresses and a guy's a lot tougher than you thought he was. The combinations that Faber put together in the third round were awesome. The kid looked good.

The problem is with a guy like Eddie, people don't realize how really good he is and how really tough he is. So going in, it's a guy that most people are like, "Ah, Faber should beat this guy anyway."

Reporter: I know it doesn't matter now, but had Eddie pulled the upset, would he have gotten the title shot against Dominick Cruz?

Yeah, that makes sense, absolutely.

Reporter: I know he'd be arguably tougher to market.

We don't look at the marketing. People think we do. That's my job, is to get out there and let people know who this guy is and why you should watch him fight.

Jen Wenk, UFC director of public relations: Ok, last question.

No, no, we're good.

Wenk: You've got a ton of one-on-one (interview)s yet.

You don't scare me, lady.

Reporter: Was it hard to get him to agree to fight Jones?

Who? Rashad? Rashad is 100% on board to fight Jones. Rashad is fired up about this fight, wants to fight Jones. I don't even know if it's my place to say this. ... From what I understand, he has left Greg Jackson's camp, and he is no longer with the Jackson camp.

Listen, Rashad and I have had our differences and we'll probably continue to have our differences, (but) Rashad is 100% on board to fight Jon Jones and actually is very fired up about the opportunity.

Reporter: Do you like that fight? You said Jones is a mile ahead of everybody.

Again, I say I'm a fight fan, just like you guys are fight fans and reporters and all this stuff, and when you guys go back tonight, you're going to write your stories and you're going to have your opinions on what you think and what you think's going to happen. The reality is, none of us knows what the (heck) we're talking about. None of us know what's going to happen. That's up to Rashad Evans, whether Rashad Evans can beat him or not.

I got a call from Jon Jones at 11 o'clock, asking me about credentials. Then I hear he chased some (freaking) guy a mile, tackles him till the police get there and all this other (stuff). "Shogun" was resting, relaxing, the experience, this and that.

My educated hypothesis was, "You know what? I kind of like 'Shogun' in this fight. This kid's doing too much on the day of (the fight)." He's calling me about credentials at (freaking) 11 o'clock in the morning? Dude, you don't fight until midnight. You should be sleeping right now.

We don't know anything. That's why when everybody has their opinions on, "Oh, this guy over there's the best," there's only one way to find out, and that's to have them fight.

I think Jon Jones is a mile ahead of everybody right now. Whether that's true or not is up to these other guys in that division. Who the hell knows?

There was a day and time when it looked like Brandon Vera was the man and he was going to annihilate everybody and possibly move up to heavyweight. Then there was a day and time when everybody was like, "It's the Machida era." Who knows?
 
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