Rampage Jackson accuses Dana White of inflating UFC pay per view numbers, gate records: ‘That left a bad taste in my mouth’
Rampage Jackson has taken aim at UFC CEO Dana White, as he accuses White of lying and inflating numbers to the press.
White is quick to tell the media how well certain pay-per-views do, or when he breaks the gate record for certain arenas. However, Jackson says those numbers sometimes aren’t true and he points to his own dealings with White as proof that the UFC boss lies about numbers to the media.
“One thing I was upset about Dana is that in my contract, if I sold over a million pay-per-view buys, my PPV numbers jumped up like dramatically,” Jackson said on his Jaxxon Podcast. “And the fight between me and Rashad Evans, I broke that threshold. And [White] told me, ‘No, you did like 900 and something, right up on a million.’ But then in press, he told everybody ‘We sold over a million buys.
“I hit him up like, ‘Pay me what the f— you told the fans,’” Jackson continued. “He says, ‘No, that part of the promotion, you make yourself seem better.’ I said ‘Alright, good. Whatever you f—ing put out there in the press that we made, that’s what you pay me on. Don’t pay me on what you f—ing telling me that we made. Pay me on what you f—ing promoting out there.’ And that’s what left a bad taste in my mouth.”
“I ain’t gonna lie, when I do my contracts, you ask for the world. Because we put our life on the line to entertain the fans, you know? I do it for the love and stuff too, but sometimes when people don’t value you, you kind of lose the love for it. And that’s the reason why I took a step back from MMA, but now this podcast is bringing back the love. You lying somewhere,” he said at the time. “You either lying to me or you lying to the press about the pay-per-view numbers. If they’re doing it to me, I’m sure they’re doing it to other fighters,” Jackson concluded.
It is an interesting comment from Rampage Jackson as he seems to think Dana White lies to the media about plenty of stuff. Whether or not that is actually the case is uncertain, but Jackson seems to think that is the case.
Rampage Jackson set to box Shannon Briggs
Rampage Jackson is set to return to combat sports in June as he will box Shannon Briggs on June 1 in Qatar.
The two have taken shots at one another for quite some time and will finally get into the ring with one another after months of talks of a potential boxing fight.
Jackson hasn’t fought since December 2019 when he was knocked out by Fedor Emelianenko in the first round.