Dana White didnât hold back when asked about Francis Ngannou during Saturdayâs UFC 308 post-fight press conference.
White and Ngannou have engaged in a back-and-forth through the press for the past two weeks, with White claiming âThe Predatorâ fumbled the bag by accepting less money outside the UFC than heâd make if he stayed. Francis, already nearly $40 million in earnings over the past year, disagrees.
Now White is pulling a Mad Men on Ngannou. When a reporter quoted Franny saying he was sure White âprays for his downfall,â Dana let âer rip.
âI donât think about Francis that much,â he said. âYou guys asked me the question about the PFL, and I responded. Other than that, the only one whoâs praying for his demise is probably the PFL, because they signed a shitty contract with a guy that doesnât deliver any numbers. And ticket sales and pay-per-views. So and they gotta keep paying this guy for however long. Good for him. Not good for them.â
âHe can he can play those games all he wants,â White insisted. âHe he would have made more money here.â
Whoâs telling the truth? Well, the numbers have been crunched, and even if Ngannou went 3-0 in his next three UFC fights including two superfights with Jon Jones, he still would have only made around $31 million. Heâs already made more than that in the past year losing twice in boxing and defeating Renan Ferreira in the PFL.
He has one more $8 million fight with PFL before becoming a free agent in MMA again, but donât expect Dana White to bid for his services. In fact, if White had had his way he would have cut Ngannou after his bunk fight with Derrick Lewis in 2018.
âI didnât like Francis as a person,â White said. âWasnât a guy I wanted to do business with. My boys were telling me heâs misunderstood. And I told them, when somebody shows you who they are, believe them.â
âYeah, it wasnât about him becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. Francis isnât a good guy. He plays the good guy. âI donât understand the language,â so he seems like a nice guy. Heâs not. And heâs just not a guy that I wanted to be in business with. Period. End of story. Whether he became the champion or not.â
âWeâll never be in business together,â he added. âI mean, you could tell. Yeah, we donât like each other. And this goes way back. This goes back to before the first Stipe fight. He pulled some shit before the first Stipe fight and I said, âIâm done with this guy.â And then Stipe beat the shit out of him. Great night.â
Does that sound like the words of someone who prays for Ngannouâs downfall?
Now despite Ngannou declaring a Jones fight wonât happen because White wonât make it happen, White is saying it was Francis thatâs at fault for the lack of a potential heavyweight superfight.
âHe didnât want that fight,â White said. âHe couldâve stayed and took that fight. He didnât want that fight. Tom Aspinall deserves that fight.â
LOL that line made me laugh.
Dana acting like a salty ex girlfriend. Not surprising.
He was never his friend!
ICECOLD
Wait until Dana has to compete with PFL AfricaâŚ
Dana full of shit
We all know it
He let the HW Linear Belt leave the UFC
Now he is in damage control and smear campaign mode
Danaâs pissed because Francis called his bluff and it paid off⌠BIG.
PFL got fucked in this deal.
This. Francis won and the PFL lost. Asides from Danaâs hurt ego, I donât think it matters much to the UFCâs bottom line.
Dana had beef with Francis a few years ago he said at a press conference that Francis had a big ego and was a dick to people backstage. This was a few years back. This is when Francis had that blond hair gimmick. I never liked the guy he always seemed fake humble. Guy would be eating cats if not for Dana white.
The ironing.
If Francis hadnât left, we would have never seen Jon at HW. I guess I should expect Dana to want to change the narrative from how his âGOATâ is ducking the entire division aside from a retiree coming off of a loss from 5 years ago.
You arenât fooling anybody worth fooling Dana. We know which HW has been quacking for years.
Jones accepted that fight. What are you talking about?
You mean now when he knew how unlikely it wasâŚespecially compared to Aspinall?
When they were in the same org, Jon wouldnât even set foot in his weight class. Then even when he did, refused any actual contenders there.
I think Jon could have beaten Francis too, if only he had the guts to try it before.
Didnt he accept when ngannou was still in UFC?
Not that Iâm aware. He just played the Conor game of making (and often deleting) tweets to get attention when Francis won but he sat on the sidelines not committing to anything until about 2 minutes after Francis left and it was just him, Gane and Stipe lol.
Shit like this. Funny how different Danaâs tune was when he had him signed. âJones might want to go to 185â lol.
Francis win. Jones says âlets playâ then deletes it. Dana says âwe can make that fight right now, you should probably drop to MW you little hoâ and Jones sits on his thumbs until Francis goes away.
Then probably realizes after the Gane fight that he probably would have tapped Francis in a round or two and he fucked up lol.
Great saying.
Francis touched on this quite a while ago on Ariel. Forget the full details but says it all stems from Francis saying or asking Dana, or his staff âis my plane readyâ or âget my plane readyâ which he says was a joke at the time. Seemed to have severely upset everyone and was downhill from there.