White to reporter: You’re a dick, sit down, shut up
“He said ‘you’re a dick,'” said Dana White. “Just translating for him … Shut up. Sit down, shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Sit down, shut up. Who has another question?”
UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo has been critical of UFC pay on a number of occasions, and has as well defended his right to be critical.
“I always want more,” he said recently. “I will always want to earn more. This is the right that I have, so I’m going to continue doing this.”
Late last year Aldo took issue with fighter treatment by both the UFC and the media.
“The athlete is not treated like he deserves,” he said to Elias Cepeda for FOX Sports. “We deserve better. I’m not speaking just about the UFC, but also about the media. The fans treat us really well. We suffer a lot and live to do a show.”
At a recent UFC 189 World stop in Toronto, BE reporter Brian D’Souza asked Aldo about the subject, borrowing Conor McGregor’s soft J, rather than the Brazilian hard j.
“I’m just wondering about the pay situation,” D’Souza began. “Do you think it’s improved at all? And how is the law suit effecting your contract with the UFC? Do you have any thoughts about joining the lawsuit by Rob Maysey?”
UFC president Dana White stood at the lectern, and watched as Aldo and his translator spoke back and forth at unusual length. Finally Aldo replied in his native Portuguese.
When Aldo was finished, an irate White offered a translation.
“He said ‘you’re a dick,'” said White. “Just translating for him.”
Then Aldo’s actual translator translated.
“I’m happy,” he began. “I’m not complaining. People are going to do whatever they want to do, so it’s up to them. But I’m happy with my contract.”
“Cool,” said White in response to Aldo, before speaking directly to D’Souza who at that point has stood up.
D’Souza described his perspective in an email to MMA Kanvas
“When I heard what Dana White said, I stood up and said ‘Dana, that was a respectful question. Your answer was disrespectful,” said D’Souza. “Then I sat down.”
White then put the reporter on blast.
“Shut up,” he explained. “Sit down, shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Sit down, shut up. Who has another question?”
D’Souza later offered a response.
“I was dismayed that his response was to insult me on the spot instead of using a more tactful approach,” said D’Souza. “Slick public relations is about defusing controversy, not creating it.”
If there is a single thing that can agreed upon, it is that White is not a slick public relations type, ever intent upon defusing controversy.
