Dana White Blasts Conspiracy Theorists: You Don’t Fix A Fight That’s 2-to-1

UFC President Dana White recently appeared on an episode of ESPN 2’s “Highly Questionable” to address some of the hot talk surrounding the Anderson Silva/Chris Weidman bout earlier this month. Inevitably, the topic of the fight being fixed came up, to which the president responded with clear-cut emotion and certainty.

First off, White puts forth the point that if the fight was going to be fixed, it would have been a bout with much higher odds, as Silva was only around 2-to-1 favorite. Many fighters had picked Weidman to win, and indeed it was the Silva bout where people thought he might lose the most.

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White goes on to blast Sports Illustrated for putting on a show about the fix, believing that the reporters who discussed the topic probably didn’t even watch the fight. He believes that journalism is unfortunately focused on shock value rather than fact value. White may have a good point here, as he backs up his argument with some valid discussion.

I tend to think that if the UFC truly wanted to fix a fight, this was not the one to do it. It would simply be too obvious, with Silva dancing around and clowning Weidman. There’s no guarantee he would be knocked out by Weidman, and the bottom line remains that there’s just simply no way that Dana White and the UFC would risk all of the guaranteed blockbuster super fights that were on the table should Silva have won.

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With an odd and controversial loss by the longtime champ (and arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all-time), there’s always going to be some speculation. However, I believe that the conspiracy theorists are unfounded when they turn their gaze to Weidman’s victory. I think that simply put, Silva got cocky and gambled to put on a show, and someone finally caught him in his act. The odds simply weren’t good enough on Weidman for a fix to bring any validation. What do you think?