After a few days of silence, UFC President Dana White has finally addressed what happened at UFC 270 and why he seemed to be a man in hiding.
If you missed it, at the end of UFC 270 White appeared to be pissed by the outcome of Francis Ngannou winning because White did not present Ngannou with the belt, or show up to the post-fight press conference.
On a ESPN+ exclusive fan Q&A hosted by the talented Laura Sanko, White addressed the rumors, even though he wasn’t necessarily asked…
Check out the clip.
In the video, White states that he wasn’t in his seat for the main event at all apparently. White states, “I actually walked out of the arena right after the co-main event because there was some stuff going on backstage I had to deal with.”
“There was some stuff going on backstage I had to deal with.”
He also shot down the notion that he has any issue with Ngannou, stating “For anybody to think that I was showing any type of disrespect towards Francis, I saw Francis all week you idiots. I shook his hand, I said hi to him, I was out there for the staredowns, the whole thing.”
“I saw Francis all week you idiots…”
You’ll have to be the judge for yourself on this one. Has there been backstage shenanigans that White has had to go deal with before? Absolutely. However, it seems rather convenient this time around, given the stakes that were behind this fight and the fact that the UFC and Ngannou were (and very much still are) butting heads at the time.
MMA’s top journalist Ariel Helwani doesn’t seem to think that White’s story holds up, tweeting the following:
🧢
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 27, 2022
For those who aren’t down with it, the baseball hat emoji means “cap”, which these days means “you’re lying.” Don’t ask me why, I just report the news.
Regardless, Helwani seems to think White is just using this as a cover and that in fact he wanted nothing to do with the main event and putting the belt around Ngannou.
Perhaps we’ll get more details in the coming days of what the event going on backstage was that was so important that it kept the President of the company away from the main event. Until we get some more of those details, it still seems a little suspicious…
