Dana White: ‘Cyborg Leaving Doesn’t Matter’
Dana White recently released former featherweight champion, Cris Cyborg. It was the end of a very disgruntled relationship between the two as they never got along from the get-go.
For White, to release an elite-fighter like Cyborg may come as a surprise to some. But, he said she was hard to deal with. It has also been a bad experience since they signed her, according to the boss, who spoke to media after last night’s Contender Series.
“Dealing with her has been a nightmare the entire time she’s been here,” White said after the Contender Series. “It’s been a bad experience dealing with Cyborg since Day 1. We brought in her after she tested positive for steroids and we made her a clean athlete with the best drug testing policy in all of sports the entire time she was here.
“When she talks about her legacy and her brand, her legacy and her brand, nothing’s better than knowing she’s a clean athlete after testing positive for steroids and all the negativity that surrounded her about being a dirty athlete. We bring her in here, we do all this stuff and she was just never happy.
“Never happy, complaining about everything – she was a nightmare to deal with, and at the end of the day she knows, I know, Amanda Nunes knows, I tried to make that Nunes fight. She doesn’t want it, she doesn’t want it. She gets mad when I say I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her. If that was Amanda Nunes (at UFC 240) I think everyone can agree what would’ve happened in that fight. She’s unhappy, we’re unhappy, she lies and does that thing. See ya later. Have a nice life.
“I don’t think there’s any peace between me and Cyborg. Whether you like me or you don’t like me, whatever your opinion is it doesn’t matter. What she did was dirty. It was dirty what she did with the video and all this other stuff in it. Meanwhile, she’s out here saying she better get an apology from me?
“Yeah. I got an apology from her. Because what she did was one of the dirtiest things. It had to kill her to apologize to me. Kill her to do it. But what she did is one of the dirtiest things you can do to somebody. That’s why she apologized.”
Although Cyborg was the champion, White admits he wouldn’t do anything differently regarding how he handled the whole situation. Something he is happy about is the fact that the UFC ended up making the Cyborg-Nunes fight after many tries, and the former champion not wanting to.
“No, I wouldn’t do anything different,” White said. “The one thing I’m glad I did was I pushed her to make sure she fought Amanda Nunes, because she didn’t want that fight the first time, let alone the second time. She wanted Cindy Dandois or Pam Sorensen.
“Those are the fights she wanted, and she was turning down Amanda Nunes. I said, ‘That’s not going to happen.’ So we kept pushing and pushing and pushing and finally we got her to take the Amanda Nunes fight. I’m happy I did that. Other than that I wouldn’t change one thing in the last five years on Cyborg.”
Where do you think Cris Cyborg will sign now that she is no longer with the UFC?
