Australian reporter Waleed Aly has been widely criticised for his interview with Dana White on Tuesday.
White appeared on Australian television to announce the upcoming UFC middleweight title fight between Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum in Melbourne but was not happy about one particular line of questioning.
While confirming the news of UFC 234’s main event, White was visibly frustrated during an interview with The Project’s Waleed Aly.
Aly, who struggled with the pronunciation of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s name at the beginning of the segment, repeatedly questioned White over the promotion of UFC 229 and claimed that the UFC president was delighted by Conor McGregor’s infamous bus attack in the lead-up to the event.
White was asked to “level with” Aly, who was adamant that the UFC brass did nothing to discourage McGregor’s behaviour because it was such a good promotional tool.
UFC president @DanaWhite shares a big Aussie announcement, explains why the bus incident wasn’t good for business and discusses the evolution of the sport. #UFC234 #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/mA1Qysc6KN
— The Project (@theprojecttv) November 13, 2018
White remained relatively composed during the interview itself but afterwards, he hit back at Aly’s criticism.
“It’s just crazy to me that anybody could believe that that’s staged, you know what I mean,” White told foxsports.com.au.
“First of all, the kid [McGregor] gets arrested, goes to jail, is being sued by everybody, and then is not allowed to fight in the state of New York anymore.
“The biggest fight we’ve ever done, gate-wise, was $18 million in New York, and we can’t go back in New York with Conor McGregor now. How does that even make sense?
“I don’t even know how you could believe that that’s true. And you know how many people have to be in on that, you know what I mean?
“If it ever came out that we did something like that, it destroys all the credibility of the sport. So for people to even think that, I just can’t wrap my head around it — makes zero sense.
“I was just like, ‘Are you guys serious? I can’t even believe that you would consider that is true.’”
White went on to slam the mainstream media for coming up with theories without looking into the facts.
“It happens when you talk to really uneducated people; people who are uneducated about sport,” White added.
“First of all, we’re sanctioned by the Athletic Commission. If the Athletic Commission knew you were doing something like that, that’d be the end of us. We’d lose our licence.”
