Issue 118

August 2014

DANA WHITE

The UFC president on why no division has him as excited as he is for the welterweights

The welterweight division in the UFC has never been nastier than it is today. That division is quite possibly the premier division we have right now, with so many high-level, well-matched guys and an abundance of cool fights just waiting to be made. It’s awesome.

All the baddest, nastiest gunslingers in the West are out there at 170lb right now and literally any fight you line up in this welterweight division is a great fight. Not just good, but great.

There’s never been a more exciting time for this weight class. It’s just unbelievable. And do you know why it’s great? Because there is not one fight you can make in this division where one guy has a clear advantage. 

There’s nobody whose wrestling is superior to everybody else’s, because all these guys can wrestle. Nobody strikes far better than anybody else. All these guys hit hard. And all these guys are dedicated. They all have great gas tanks... It’s just packed with talent.

Obviously, it’s our job now to bring these guys together inside the Octagon and let them shoot it out, and as you’ve probably noticed already, that’s what we’ve been doing all year. But we are just getting started.

It’s been an incredible first six months for us so far, and we’ve had so many contenders for ‘Fight of the Year’ already in 2014. But Robbie Lawler against Matt Brown, which we booked to headline the Fox card at the end of July, that could change everything. 

If you look at that fight on paper, it being a bad fight doesn’t make any sense. It’s going to be a war. Those two are going to be banging it out and we’ll see whose chin holds up. I truly believe that whoever does have the best chin, will be the guy who wins that fight. Plain and simple.

But it’s not just that fight either, that whole card is f**king awesome. It’s a great card. I love this s**t. Personally, I am in a spot right now where I just can’t see enough fights. We’ve got so much good s**t going on and I’m just trying not to miss any of it.

I had to fly out to New York and was supposed to be heading back to Las Vegas because we had s**t going on, but I thought, ‘F**k that s**t, I’m going to Cincinnati to watch Brown and Silva,’ and being at that fight, in that arena, was f**king unbelievable. Unbelievable. 

First of all, a bunch of the Cincinnati Bengals football players were there and they were running around the place going crazy. Everybody was going crazy. It was so loud. Then the following weekend in Vegas, the MGM went nuts when TJ Dillashaw started winning that fight against Renan Barao.

I was talking the other day to someone about Dublin, the show headlined by Conor McGregor. No way in hell am I missing that. I will be in Dublin for sure. I’m just trying to get to as many events as I can this year as every show I’ve been to so far has been just awesome live. 

We all know the difference between being at a UFC show in person and watching from home, they just don’t compare. Don’t get me wrong, we do a good job and our shows are great on TV. But the live event is just something else, and the fighters are delivering time after time.

As well as the Lawler and Brown fight we’ve also got Rory MacDonald and Tyron Woodley going at it in Vancouver, and that’s another fun fight for the welterweight division. Then whoever comes through from those fights, well, someone’s going to have to fight Johny Hendricks. Then the other guys can fight each other. 

It just never ends. The possibilities are limitless at 170lb. And by the time this thing winds down and we all figure out who the undisputed champion is, and everyone has fought and beat each other and the dust finally settles, well, guess what, hopefully, in comes Georges St Pierre and then we have another huge showdown.

I don’t actually know whether Georges will ever come back. A few weeks ago I was saying, ‘Hell yeah!’ but after that second ACL problem, I just don’t know. He’s got to recover from this second surgery now, and he’s certainly not getting any younger.

But if Georges St Pierre is able to comeback then, of course, we would love to see him come back, we would welcome him back. But, as I’ve said, the division is like the Wild West right now, anyway. All GSP will do, if he does get back in there, is make it even more exciting.