Dana White is not impressed with Oscar De La Hoya

Oscar De La Hoya has gotten into the mixed martial arts business with Golden Boy MMA. The first event was headlined by Tito Ortiz crushing a hugely diminished Chuck Liddell and did woeful PPV numbers. DLH said he was going to stay in the MMA business though, because the UFC was so woefully underpaying its fighters.

UFC president Dana White was not impressed.

The guy wants to act like he’s my competitor, said White to Kevin Iole for Yahoo Sports. I have a real business that I’ve built over the last 18 years. A real business, and I can hit you with numbers for days about it. How much has Oscar De La Hoya reinvested into the sport of boxing? We’ve reinvested millions and millions of dollars and we continue to do it every day. The list goes on and on.

The guy wants to come out and tell lies and say things that make no sense when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He knows nothing about this sport. He doesn’t know the f***ing guys’ names who are fighting on his card. He’s a liar. He’s a phony and God help anybody who wants to go fight for Golden Boy. These fighters are grown men and women. All they have to do is take one meeting with Oscar De La Hoya and they’ll see what he knows about MMA, which is absolutely f***ing nothing.

White was particularly not impressed with DLH’s comments about how much Liddell made.

“I gave Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell the opportunity because Dana White doesn’t pay them enough,” said De La Hoya. “Why in the hell is Chuck Liddell still fighting at this age? Because Dana White doesn’t pay him enough, that’s why. So I have to come in and give him his biggest payday that he’s ever made.

In response, White said Liddell never made less than $1 million in his final eleven fights, from his winning the title at UFC 52 in 2005 onwards. For his final three fights, all losses, Liddell made a minimum of $2.7 million per fight. After retiring Liddell continued to get paid – $391,115 in 2011; $409,479 in 2012; $360,362 in 2013; $358,501 in 2014; $368,284 in 2015; $421,836 in 2016; $418,562 in 2017, and this which was appearance and royalty money only with no salary, $14,577. White also said the since 2001 when he joined the company, nine shows broke the $1 million PPV buy mark. Athlete compensation for those shows was $133 million ($84 million to main event fighters; $27.4 million to co-main fighters; and, $21.6 million to all other fighters).

He said, ‘Chuck Liddell made $200,000 when he fought Tito Ortiz and that pay-per-view did 1.5 million homes. Who kept the rest of the money?’ said White. Well, let me set the record straight. UFC 47 was on April 2, 2004, and that was the first time Chuck and Tito fought. That pay-per-view did 106,000 buys. At UFC 66, on Dec. 30, 2006, when they fought for the second time, it did 929,000 buys. When Chuck fought the second time, he made $2.882 million and Tito made $2.081 million. Those are the facts, so Oscar is lying again.

California State Athletic Commission show Liddell making $250,000 and Ortiz $200,000 plus the fighters reportedly got an outsized share of the PPV. Prior to the event, Ortiz detailed his expectations.

I’m not saying we even break 500,000, said Ortiz. But we get close to that, I would be very happy. … It would be pretty close [to my best payday]. For the pay-per-view that was earned, if we could do 1.3 million buys, it would be a home run out of the park, forever.”

Estimates for the PPV buys range from around 25,000 to 40,000, although De La Hoya says that doesn’t include digital buys.

White said his old friend Liddell told him, This was the most unprofessional and disorganized group of people I ever worked with. I guess I was spoiled because I was with the UFC for most of my career and got used to how it was done over there.