Dana White Goes Back On Long-Term UFC Fighter Health Benefits Pledge
UFC president, Dana White has distanced the promotion from future health benefits for fighters under the promotion’s banner, claiming that he had responded to the wrong user on his Instagram post, in which he replied “soon” when asked if the UFC would be implementing a future health benefit scheme for their roster of fighters.
During an Instagram live Q&A session with broadcaster, Karyn Bryant, an Instagram user posed a question to White, asking if the promotion would be implementing a future scheme that would offer fighters future health benefits, to which he simply responded, “soon“.
However, during a recent interview with UFC Arabia reporter, Farah Hannoun, White attempted to clarify up the issue regarding a potential future benefit scheme, claiming that he had actually responded to the wrong question with the answer, “soon” — jokingly claiming he intended on answering a different user.
“Yeah, uhm, that actually wasn’t a Q&A, that was on Instagram,” White said. “I responded to the wrong guy when I said ‘soon’ (laughs). That was wrong actually, I responded — I noticed that later, that I had said, ‘soon’, but it was on the wrong post. I wasn’t talking to that guy. It was somebody else.“
White’s claims that he was talking to the wrong user drew a response from former UFC featherweight champion and current Bellator featherweight titleholder, Cris Cyborg — who stated that fighters deserved to have their injuries sustained during their professional mixed martial arts careers looked after by the UFC.
“I don’t understand why @Farah_Hannoun would laugh with him instead of asking a follow up question,” Cyborg tweeted. “Fighters like @timsylviamma and more deserve to have their injuries from fighting in the @ufc
Prominent figures such as the likes of the above-mentioned, Cyborg as well as two-time foe and former UFC bantamweight, Leslie Smith have campaigned for a mixed martial arts union to be formed, as well as former middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold, who criticized White in the past, and has called for a governing body to step in.
“Fighting is like a mafia,” Rockhold said. “They have these very mafioso-type tactics in negotiations, they try to f*ck with you. I’m not having any of it. If you don’t know your worth, someone will tell you your worth and it’ll be less than your worth, so know your worth. Once I lost the world title, Dana White came up to me and tried to beat me down mentally and I was like ‘f*ck you,’ straight up. I was like I’m going to go do my own thing, if you’re going to try and offer me this and that bullsh*t, you know who I am and what I did, that’s the only reason I went out and got a modeling contract so I could leverage myself.“
“We don’t have the governing body,” Rockhold continued. “We’ve got an egotistical guy that’s a bit of a tyrant. No one is going to try and fight you, you’ve got to put your ass on the line, stand your ground, take (the) risk, otherwise, you get treated like a b*tch. It’s unfortunate, a guy like that, he thinks he can fight, he thinks he’s a fighter. I don’t understand why he’s trying to belittle all the fighters when you’ve never fought a day in your life. You’re a promoter. We need a governing body to give people what they deserve, he doesn’t play the game right.“
