Amidst widely publicized moves from rival MMA promotion PFL – including rumors that PFL will buy Bellator – UFC president Dana White is unconvinced by the promotion.
In a recent press conference, White was nonplussed by the idea of buying out Bellator, the second-biggest MMA promotion after the UFC.
UFC President Dana White: “Why on God’s green f******* Earth would anybody buy Bellator?”
“Why on God’s green f******* Earth would anybody buy Bellator? So what we were just talking about with business and making the right moves and making the right decisions, there’s been lots of bad ones — Bellator would be one of the f****** biggest.
Why anybody would buy Bellator is beside me, but sit back and see how this plays out. I’m excited.” Supposedly, PFL is looking at purchasing Bellator for around $500 million, prompting White to respond with some very serious sarcasm.
“Bellator’s $500 million? Awesome. Sounds like a steal. Sounds like a f******* steal. Buy that thing quick before who else does? Come on, you guys. It’s f****** silly!”
While the PFL has recently seen a $100 million investment from Saudi Arabia, it’s still a long way from the UFC’s domination of the market, let alone the UFC’s enormous profit margin. PFL might be paying their fighters better than the UFC, but White argues that eventually the dollars have to make sense.
“If you go in the dictionary and look up the word ‘business,’ there’s business and then there’s charity. I’m involved in both. I run a business and I do lots of things for charity. Most of these other guys are all running charities. Not businesses. Like I said, you can only do that for so long before it runs out, it ends. So, we will see.
When you guys ask me these kinds of questions, you ask me like this is the first time I’ve seen things like this or this is the first time somebody with money was getting involved. It’s about a lot more than money.”
White also rejected the notion that PFL pays more than the UFC, which remains a contentious issue, given that the UFC lost its heavyweight champion to PFL in search of a greater payday.
“One of the big things he said in there, which is absolutely false, is that they pay more than the UFC, which is absolutely positively not true.
But I do see them waste unbelievable amounts of money. You can only waste unbelievable amounts of money for so long no matter how much money somebody has.
There’s either a lot of delusion or he’s uninformed. Almost everything in that statement is incorrect except for what happens in the cage determines your future.
I think that’s the only right thing that he said. Good for him. Get out there. F******, let’s fire it up. Whatever. It’s all good.”
