SUMMARY
- The UFC is going on trial for an antitrust lawsuit case on April 2024.
- Recently, texts and emails related to UFC lawsuit has been unsealed.
UFC and Dana White have made a great start to a pivotal year in the promotion’s history. With UFC 297 being a huge success, behind them, they are gearing up for their upcoming PPVs. But all eyes will be on UFC 300 in Las Vegas, Nevada in April.
Apart from the sporting projects lined up for the UFC, there is yet another crucial event that has the potential to alter the MMA landscape forever. There has been an ongoing antitrust lawsuit case against the UFC. This lawsuit is scheduled to go on trial in April 2024. Simply put it will be a war waged on the UFC which cannot be pushed away and has to be won at any cost.
The repercussions of losing the case will be massive for the UFC and they could lose a huge amount of their finances owing to the lawsuit. Recently many text conversations and emails related to the UFC antitrust lawsuit were unsealed. Amongst the many documents which were obtained by John S. Nash and Bloody Elbow were text conversations, fighter’s pay structures, and also depositions.
Of all the depositions that have been obtained, the deposition of Dana White is perhaps the most important one. The deposition has uncovered many such conversations and statements where many nasty negotiation tactics have been revealed. Furthermore, most of these conversations include Dana White. One such conversation was about former Strikeforce and Bellator promoter, Scott Coker.
Dana White disses Scott Coker’s promotion skills
Out of all the text messages obtained from the antitrust lawsuit, one was revealed to be about another MMA promotion. The conversation was between Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta, who is a former co-owner of the UFC. It was about Bellator MMA booking a fight between two former UFC athletes, Tito Ortiz and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson.
In the text message, Fertitta wrote to White, “I thought they don’t take UFC castoffs.” In UFC CEO Dana White’s deposition, he was asked about those particular text conversations. The first question regarding the matter was, “What did you understand Mr. Fertitta to be saying there?” Dana responded that Bellator had come out and said that they wouldn’t take castoffs.
Dana White reacts to UFC antitrust lawsuit trial pic.twitter.com/Zfk9WI3OOP
— Best MMA Moments (@XcellentMMA) January 20, 2024
To which the return question was whether UFC indeed thought of ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Tito Ortiz as castoffs. To which Dana responded affirmatively saying, “That’s Scott Coker’s MO. Scott Coker doesn’t build anybody, right? He doesn’t turn anybody into stars. He just takes old names and recycles them. He’s a very, very bad promoter.” White further added, “Very bad at what he does.”
When Dana was further asked about Scott being in various other promotions Dana’s response was that those promotions were “All failures.” But that’s not all that was discussed about Scott Coker as White further used an example of a UFC legend to justify Scott Coker’s bad promotion skills.
White contradicts previously made statements to claim that UFC made Ronda Rousey
As many know Dana White has a special relationship with Ronda Rousey whom he desperately tried to sign in 2012. He did succeed back then and eventually Ronda became the first-ever UFC women’s champion. Dana White has always talked about how great of an athlete Ronda Rousey was even before she was a part of UFC. But White recently contradicted his statements in the antitrust lawsuit deposition.
Dana White says Ronda Rousey has moved on with her life. Seems like he doesn’t believe she will fight in UFC again. pic.twitter.com/5B58vd2rzi
— Wrestling News (@WrestlingNewsCo) August 30, 2023
When asked about his previous testimonies regarding UFC getting great fighters from Coker’s Strikeforce promotion. Dana White said, “That we turned into stars. When you have Ronda Rousey and you can’t turn her into a star, you should probably go open a restaurant or something.” White further claimed that Scott Coker recycles big names like Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Tito Ortiz.
But he isn’t capable of “turning guys into stars, even when he has a roster packed with stars, and one of them includes Ronda Rousey.” When asked if Ronda Rousey wasn’t a star during her time at Strikeforce, Dana White simply stated that it was the UFC and him personally that turned her into one.
Dana said, “Till I turned her into a star. Just for the record, I turned her into a star immediately when she got to the UFC.” This is a complete U-Turn from Dana White’s previously made statements about Ronda where he was all in awe of Rousey’s stardom even before she was a part of the UFC. What are your thoughts on Dana White’s contradictory statements?