Dana White: Mark Hunt Is One Of The Greatest Stories In Sports

Mark Hunt has not has an easy ride since Pride went belly up, firstly UFC Prez Dana White wanted Hunt to retire. He went as far as offering to pay the Super Samoan to ride off in to the sunset, something that Hunt took offense to. Since then Mark Hunt has given his doubters the middle finger by going on a hot streak in the UFC.

Knockout victories over Cheick Kongo and Stefan Struve have helped catapult the fan Favorite in to the limelight. Check out what DW had to say via MMAJunkie:

“He had a losing record in PRIDE and we didn’t want to bring him into the UFC, so we said, ‘We’ll pay you the money and you can ride off into the sunset and do your thing.’ And he was like, ‘F— that. I want to be paid to fight.’ First of all, a losing record, his age, the guy hadn’t fought in a long time. It just made no sense to bring the guy in. Even though we weren’t wrong (about not wanting him at first), we ended up being wrong. He proved us wrong, he proved everybody who doubted him wrong. We just didn’t cut him, we kept him – and imagine if we had cut him.”

It seems that Dana has really woke up and smelled the coffee, Mark Hunt is for real, and he’s here to fight.

“We do respect you and I think you’re one of the greatest stories in sports right now, to be honest with you. So I got everything worked out and now he’s ecstatic and I’m happy I could do it.”

UFC 160 will be a big step towards the title shot for Hunt, if he can pull off the win against a very dangerous JDS. Stay tuned to Lowkick!