Dana White Talks UFC Freedom 250, New UFC Rankings + More

“That’s the biggest thing that we've ever done, and obviously the biggest thing ever for the sport. My job – I've been saying this since the end of the ESPN deal – my job is to deliver for Paramount, and boy, have we delivered in six months. 

“A lot of the stuff, we’ve just been quiet. We’ll let them announce, and then, you know, some of these markets that were still in are pay-per-view, so you’ve got to go through all the pay-per-view stuff and everything else, but the global number will probably come out next week.”

The UFC is taking on the established big leagues

White also explained that, rather than continue his back-and-forth with other promoters in the media, he’s going to focus instead on his main competition: the four major US sports leagues.

READ: Kape vs Horiguchi's Biggest Winners

“Let me just put it this way, from here on out, with all the media, I'm not going to say anything about any of these other (promoters/organizations). We are not the same,” White stated. 

“We literally, right now, are competing with the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NHL. If you think about where we sit in the pecking order of the top sports in the country, I don't know this to be true, but I f****** guarantee you it is – the day we announced that we did a $7.7 billion deal, the executives at the NFL said, ‘How the f*** did we not get this money, and how did we not know that kind of money was sitting over there? We'll do games on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday.’ 

Rewatch Every UFC Event On Paramount+

“Then you’ve got the NBA, Major League Baseball is looking for a new deal, and the NHL, so if you look at where TV was 15 years ago, all these powerful cable channels and all this stuff, the cable industry is taking a nosedive, so what do you have left? You have NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox, and then you have like three powerful streaming services, right? There's a lot of people fighting over the same turf.”

Thoughts on Alex Pereira’s claims Ciryl Gane beat him with illegal strikes

Former light heavyweight and middleweight champion Alex Pereira fell short in his attempt to capture the interim heavyweight title, and after his TKO loss to Ciryl Gane, he made clear that he was the recipient of several illegal strikes during the final sequence that led to the fight’s stoppage by referee Herb Dean.

White was asked his take on the situation, and he explained, “I say it all the time, and I'll say it again, no reffing anywhere is perfect.

“I also think that if you watch the fight, it's undeniable that he got hit with some strikes to the back of the head. But in the middle of the action, when it's going on, and guys are rolling around trying to get out of it, sometimes some fouls happen, and maybe (Herb) Dean should have said, 'Hey, watch the back of the head,’ or, warned him, or something like that. But I don't know.

“I can tell you this. Alex Pereira is not a whiner. Alex Pereira doesn’t complain about things or make excuses after fights, so I have to believe that he truly believed that was true.”

The President’s Own US Marine Band thrilled the fans at the White House

One of the big highlights of the UFC Freedom 250 event was the performance of the The President’s Own US Marine Band, established in 1798, who played their own live versions of each fighter’s walkout songs as they thrilled the fans in attendance, and those watching from afar.

“They were incredible,” White enthused.

“I'm still gonna do human, non-human – however you want to look at it –rankings, and I think that neither will be perfect, but it'll get us closer. Actually, the rankings that are going to come out on Monday, I think make a lot more sense. 

“I think you're going to have a lot of people who are going to complain and argue and go, ‘Oh, this isn't fair. That's not right.’ (But) we'll see how it plays out over the first year.”

Any other business…

White was also asked for his take on main event winner Manel Kape’s punch power following “Starboy’s” TKO victory over Kyoji Horiguchi in Saturday night’s main event bout.

“Let's talk about how one punch can change the trajectory of a fight, and that was it,” he said.

White also spoke about the winner of the co-main event, as New Zealand’s Navajo Stirlong extended his unbeaten record with a second-round TKO of Ion Cutelaba.

FIGHT NIGHT REWIND: Main Card Results | Prelim Results | Scorecards 

“Incredible. Yeah, impressive finish,” he said.

“Cutelaba’s got a hell of a chin. He was laying there, taking all those shots. We have a group chat with the matchmakers, and they were like, ‘I can never tell when he’s sort of playing possum.’ I said, ‘His face doesn’t look like he was playing possum’ at the end when they were raising (Stirling’s) hand. But great win for (Stirling).”