Leaked messages reveals UFC boss Dana White’s trashing of Scott Coker: ‘I turned Ronda Rousey into a star’
Amid the ongoing antitrust lawsuit brought against the UFC, the promotion’s CEO, Dana White openly criticized Bellator MMA boss, Scott Coker – claiming the veteran promoter was a bad one at that, as well as taking credit for the stardom amassed by former UFC bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey.
Dana White claims he turned Ronda Rousey into a star
In leaked text messages obtained by Bloody Elbow and esteemed reporter, John S. Nash, former UFC CEO, Lorenzo Fertitta claimed that Bellator took “castoffs” from the UFC – in the form of former light heavyweight champions, Quinton Jackson, and Tito Ortiz – in response to a booking of a fight between the duo, as well as labelling Coker a “very bad promoter”.
Question: Okay, what did you understand Mr. Fertitta to be saying there?
Dana White: That Bellator had come out and said, ‘We don’t take UFC castoffs.’
Question: All right. And – but nevertheless, UFC viewed Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Jackson as essentially castoffs?
White: That’s – that’s Scott Coker’s MO. Scott Coker doesn’t build anyone, right? He doesn’yt turn anybody into stars. He just takes old names and recycles them. He’s a – he – he’s a very, very bad promoter.
Question: Okay.
Dana White: Very bad at what he does.
Question: All right. And that’s a – that’s – you’re saying that – I just want to understand you. Because Mr. Coker’s been in several different promotions, right?
White: Right.
Question: Okay.
White: All failures.
And during the deposition, White claimed that while inaugural UFC bantamweight champion< Rousey was signed from the Coked-led Strikeforce banner, where she also held championship spoils, it was he, not Coker who made the Riverside native a “star” – before claiming Coker should “open a restaurant”, if he couldn’t, in his opinion, turn her into a star.
Question: Right. Is it your – not withstanding the fact that the UFC got some – I think as you testified earlier, some really great fighters from Mr. Coker’s Strikeforc promotion, right?
Dana White: That we turned into stars. When you have Ronda Rousey and you can’t turn her into a star, you should probably go open a restaurant or something.
Question: And so – and so is it your testimony that at Bellator, Mr. Coker is continuing to ressntially recycle has-been fighters? Is that –
White: Well, no. He – he recycles big names.
Question: Right.
White: “That’s what he does. Rampage Jackson is a huge name. Tito Ortiz is a huge name. And – and basically, he re– you know, takes guys with big names and puts on fights with them instead of turning guys into stars, even when he has a roster packed with stars, and one of them include Ronda Rousey.
Question: Well, Ronda Rousey wasn’t a star at the time that she was fighting under contract with Strikeforce, right?
White: ‘Till I turned her into a star.
White: Just for the record, I turned her into a star immediately when she got to the UFC –
Question: Okay.
White – her first fight.
