Dana White was pressed on the 2022 altercation with his wife and why it seemed to have no impact on his tenure as UFC President.
White and his wife Anne were filmed arguing at a 2022 New Year’s Eve party at a nightclub in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, during which Anne slapped White and he responded by slapping her back. They both made a public apology after the fact, saying they had consumed too much alcohol that night, while the UFC did not make any form of address as a company.
“We didn’t have any sponsor problems during that,” White recalled during an appearance on “The Breakfast Club.” “My wife and I jumped on that immediately. That was more, we had to deal with our kids on that one. When you embarrass your children on a global level, you know, that’s one of the worst thing that can ever happen to you.”
He continued to say that his kids and apologizing to them came first and foremost, although when he got back from Mexico it was “64 days of getting hammered.”
“I had to live in Vegas, so I was waking up at like three in the morning every morning because the east coast is cracking off at six with all the, you know, talk shows and sports shows and I had to make the rounds and do all the interviews. I say this all the time, you find out who’s who and what’s what when the s*** hits the fan. I learned a lot about a lot of people during that time. In mostly a positive way, not negative.”
Dana White on why he didn’t step down from UFC
White was then asked about what would happen if a UFC fighter had been caught doing the same thing.
“It’s happened,” he replied. “What’s funny is, it’s not funny, but I used to say that you don’t recover from those. Those are the ones you don’t recover from.”
It was then pointed out that he had recovered, to which he said, “I did.” And then he maintained that being the boss didn’t protect him from consequences. “Come on, Dana,” Charlamagne “Tha God” responded.
“Definitely not,” White reaffirmed.
It was then specifically said that he had made the choice publicly not to excuse himself from the brand.
“Well listen, there’s a board of directors. There’s, you know, there’s other people that are involved that could have pushed for that,” he explained. “I think, and obviously they think too, it would have hurt the company more if I did step away.”
When asked whether he would let another fighter off in the same case, he said he thinks he is “probably the most lenient” guy when it comes to dealing with “free speech or bad things that happen.”
“I’m in a fight business. It’s not like I run Microsoft,” he said.
He continued to say that he never thought in a million years that that would happen, and he could tell by the way his kids reacted that something major had happened. The consequence of that, White said, was that his eldest son didn’t talk about him for four days.
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