Dana White gives it to Jones and Jackson with both barrels
In front of a group of reporters gathered at UFC headquarters in Las Vegas, UFC President Dana White unloaded on UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones and his coach, Greg Jackson. Dan Henderson was forced to pull out of UFC 151 because of a knee injury and Jones refused a bout against substitute opponent Chael Sonnen.
White had no kind words for Jones: “The Jon Jones piece of meat f&#*ing thing. When I see him in f&#*ing Toronto, that’s the first f&#*ing thing we’re going to talk about. Piece of meat? Give me a f&#*ing break,” White told a small group of reporters gathered at the UFC headquarters, about an upcoming conversation he would have with Jones before his UFC 152 fight next weekend against Vitor Belfort in Canada. That sounds like something a male supermodel would say: I feel like a piece of meat out here (White said in a mocking voice). That pisses me off worse than f&#*ing canceling the event. I just heard that one today, Jim Rome told me that.”
White recalled how he notified Jones immediately after learning of Henderson’s injury and seemed to have a fight against Sonnen in place: “I was driving off the freeway, I had just landed and called him and told him what Sonnen said and he f&#*ing laughed. It wasn’t like: Whoa, this might be the biggest mistake of my f&#*ing career. I thought we had a f&#*ing fight. He was laughing and was like ‘Alright I’m going to call my team and call you back in a little while.’ And then they call back and it was a completely different f&#*ing story. It was the genius Greg Jackson that talked him out of the fight. Talked him out of fighting Chael Sonnen on eight days f&#*ing notice, yet fighting Vitor Belfort off a full f&#*ing camp. Ok, we were gonna fight Dan Henderson, guy’s got f&#*ing knockout power, great wrestling, a good chin, tough f&#*ing guy. Now here’s Chael Sonnen on eight days notice and he’s a f&#*ing 185 pounder, coming in with no camp whatsoever. And you heard what they said: he’s a southpaw. Vitor Belfort‘s a f&#*ing southpaw. And hits f&#*ing harder, and is faster and more explosive. So you’re gonna f&#*ing say no to him on eight days notice but fight Vitor? It’s so stupid that it gets me angry.”
White continued: “Every time somebody asks me if I take responsibility for canceling UFC 151 on f&#*ing Twitter, it’s like ‘ Yeah, how’s it my fault?’ If somebody can even try to give me an idea of how that’s my fault that 151 got canceled, I would love to hear it. Dan Henderson should have told me three weeks before that his f&#*ing knee was hurt, and maybe I could have saved it. And Jon Jones should have fought f&#*ing Chael Sonnen. And his f&#*ing goofy trainer should have kept his face shut.”
Three weeks ago, White went off on Coach Greg Jackson, on a media call immediately after the event’s cancellation. He continued his tirade yesterday: “The thing that drives me crazy about Greg Jackson is Greg Jackson has this whole little thing where he’s the nicest guy in the world, the nicest guy you’ve ever met. Real quiet and humble. He’s a f&#*ing hardcore businessman. That’s what that guy is. He plays the whole thing with Jon and Rashad (Evans) and f&#*ing Jardine and all these guys ‘We’re all family, we’re all brothers. We’re a big family here and that’s what we are. We won’t fight each other because we’re family.’ Bull@%*% You’re not family. You train together. Yes they like each other. There’s a lot of nice guys in MMA. Keith Jardine is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. Rashad is cool too. This sport is full of nice guys, so he plays this card with these guys.”
The UFC boss said: “The only reason we even know who Greg Jackson is cause of f&#*ing Diego Sanchez. Diego Sanchez came out of his camp because of GSP. GSP wanted to come train at Jackson’s camp and Diego was like f&#* that! ‘This is my house, man. I’m going to have to fight this guy one day.’ What did Greg Jackson do? Brought GSP down there. You know why? Because he believed GSP would f&#*ing beat Diego Sanchez. He made a business decision. I will take him over him. What happened to f&#*ing family? Who could be more family to you than f&#*ing Diego Sanchez, the kid’s been with you since he was f&#*ing 14 years old. What happened to family, Greg, you f&#*ing family-guy you.”
White accused Jackson of disloyalty to his fighters: “Then you got Rashad Evans, Rashad Evans was with him the second-longest other than Diego Sanchez. ‘That’s his brother, we’re brothers. He’s my family. He’s this, that and everything else.’ Jon Jones wanted to come train there and comes in and everything is cool. Who the f&#* did Greg Jackson pick? He picked the guy who he thought would beat Rashad Evans, no matter how f&#*ing long Rashad Evans had been with him. He made a f&#*ing business decision. He’s a businessman, he’s a f&#*ing con artist.
“Let me be fair. It’s good to have a trainer whom you respect. To keep you in f&#*ing line, that you don’t run the f&#*ing show. To keep you in order, and you respect him enough to run a camp. And have his s%*% together to keep your life organized and focused and ready for a f&#*ing fight and do all this other stuff. But Greg Jackson is a f&#*ing businessman who cons all these guys into this family (expletive). Because it would be the perfect f&#*ing world if I can have Diego, GSP, Rashad, Jon Jones and a list of other f&#*ing characters who don’t have to fight each other because they’re all the best in the world. And if they don’t ever have to f&#*ing fight each other, he makes money from all of these guys. Big money, because these are all big-money fighters. He’s full of s%&% is what he is.”
When asked how he thought the crowd would respond to Jones, White said: “I don’t think it will be that much different. It’s not like he was getting Wanderlei Silva-type receptions anyway. It will be interesting to see if fans boo him more than before, or they will cheer for him. But you can’t deny no matter what they do, people are interested in Jon Jones.”
