UFC President Dana White speaks with members of the media following the conclusion of UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejudo in Newark …
all right gang the attendance was 17 559 sold out the gate was 5.12 Million highest grossing uh sporting event in the Arena’s history fight of the night was uh mosvar versus Lopez and performance of the night went to Jana fravola they all won 50 000. what’s up buddy obviously Dana fun Main Event technical Main Event close Main Event how did you score it in the final fight tonight yeah I I mean I had uh I had all Joe win in the fight yeah but but still close right very close fight yeah what did you think of Henry’s performance after three years away from the incredible yeah you know I’m a big believer in ring rust and you know not only did he fight five tough uh rounds against the guy much bigger than him um you know yeah he looked good and then for algerman it looked like initially Henry might have the wrestling Advantage but aljo was able to take his back a couple of times get the hooks in what was your reaction one of the things that impresses me about Henry Judo is like the Mariah’s fight after the first round I said ooh Henry’s in trouble tonight and then he makes these adjustments and comes back in the second round and and looks unbelievable so um yeah I thought both guys fought a hell of a fight before this fight we were talking about whoever wins it does something for their legacy right for Aldo it cements him as being one of the best bantamweights of all time do you think after that performance that is fair that he is one of those the best yeah it was a big win for him it was obviously a big win you know there’s a lot of uh like I said leading up to this fight you know there’s the Peter yarn fight and and then there’s the de la Shaw fight and you know going in and and and and you know grueling it out for five rounds with Henry sahuto regardless of the weight and size difference it’s a big deal to beat Henry you know you usually don’t make fights on the night of the fight but you’re going to ask me anyway well I feel like it’s fair to say sure no Matt is probably next for our Jermaine Sterling right I mean that what that sure no Mali might just be next round yeah yeah I’ve had better ideas than uh than what I did tonight uh not a great idea but yes he’s next when you bring him into the cage and they have the face off and then you slowly see it start to escalate with miraba do you just think I should yeah yeah that was a bad idea do we have any sort of timeline on when we’d like to do that fight um yeah probably August okay in Boston probably okay cool uh Gilbert bands got the win Gilbert looks to be fighting kind of injured I’m curious of your reaction to that fight yeah he he had a tear on his shoulder I think it was that first scramble on the ground there when he took him down and uh he’s got a tear yeah and we saved say below is fighting the winner of Leon versus Colby and and what’s that yeah yeah 100 okay and the last one for me I wanted to sort of give some props to Diego Lopez stepped in on five days notice against most of our nearly tapped him in the first round fought really hard in the third round of five days notice pretty impressive awesome incredible performance uh kids got a ton of heart he’s an absolute dog loved every minute of it yeah and what did we think of his haircut uh well listen he fought so good let’s leave his haircut alone uh go ahead um dude I want to ask for yanchonan obviously a great finish of Jessica and Josh we had her back here and I was asking her like how big a fight between her and Jang could be for China um do you have any insight on like the metrics of maybe you can’t do it there right now but like what could that do for that market that you guys have been continuing to push into you know what’s crazy is Teddy Atlas was sitting with me during that fight and uh and Raj kept throwing lead left hooks and and he says if she keeps this girl throws great straight right hands if she keeps throwing that lead left hook she’s going to knock her out with a straight right he literally called exactly what was going to happen and she threw like three hooks in a row he literally called it two minutes before it happened because she kept throwing these little he says when people are sparring and they’re throwing lead left hooks like that against somebody you can throw I literally jump in the ring and tell him to stop and and I break up the whole sparring and break it down but he literally called that that was going to happen um yeah I don’t know what we’re gonna do with Jan where she’s gonna go but I’m definitely going to look at China yeah you could potentially go back to China and yeah I’m looking at that right now and uh what did you think of chrome Gracie tonight you know I like Chrome a lot and uh he’s a good kid um he came in very limited tonight very limited you know it’s like coming out of a time capsule in 1995 you know what I mean tough way to try to win a fight these days yeah 30th Anniversary you’d never think you’d kind of see that well the kids got a ton of heart he’s got a good chin I like him and uh you know I don’t I don’t want to on his performance but yeah that was a rough rough game plan yeah and on the future prelim map for Vol a great finish first person to knock out Drew Dober in like 12 years or something he keeps calling out Patty he wants this fight real real bad I know Patty’s nursing some injuries but to see a guy maybe you look at to grant that wish just I I have no idea I mean all these fights at that level are all about timing you know what I mean yeah and uh last thing nothing to do with this card but the last few days we’ve seen uh Alex pohara and Israel adesanya going back and forth a lot on social media and Alex is kind of hinting that he wants that MMA Trilogy do you have any indication is he still wanting to go to 205 or is he maybe reconsidering to try to get that fight again first of all I didn’t even know that um but yeah no he’s going to 205. yeah any idea when we could see that debut no none all right thank you all right did you ever hear you right hey uh so May 20th aldana is out of the main event do you guys have a new main event for that card um May 20th aldana’s out oh yeah yeah you’re talking about uh Raquel yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no no we don’t have we don’t have another fight for that Raquel’s gonna be the backup uh for that fight and uh yeah I don’t know what we’re doing there yet okay and then more immediately or I guess rather not more I thought you were telling me something I didn’t know and that all Donna was out of the fight I was like when the did that happen nobody told me definitely not um but you know tonight bilal’s next do we have any progress with Leon and Colby no anyway congratulations on a great night thank you you packed the house in New Jersey a Prudential Center you came back every fight delivered how impressed were you with alga mean Sterling and Henry Studio taking that initiative to sell this fight and pretty much pack this house or help pack this house yeah I mean um it wasn’t a matter of those guys trying to sell the fight I mean if you are a fight fan you realize that this was a great fight between two guys who stylistically match up very well um and the card was a fun card you know and and uh I love when they deliver the fights were awesome tonight from the first prelim the second prelim on throughout the rest of the night the fights were great and how impressed were you with Gilbert Burns he was obviously hurt but he lasted all five rounds he was playing with essentially one hand like how impressed were you would go with birds I’m always impressed with Gilbert Burns you know his fight with hamzajimaya was unbelievable and then what he did in Miami a few weeks ago was unbelievable in the fact that he wanted to turn around this fast uh nothing but respect for that kid and and to think that he would fight with one shoulder is not shocking he’s an absolute Savage and after the long layoff uh Henry sudo obviously didn’t fight uh since 2019. I he took off his gloves at the end of the fight and I got a little bit worried that he might be retiring and he said he doesn’t know what he wants are you gonna try to talk him into stain and not you know know you know he had a great performance would you talk him out if he said he wanted to retire or he wanted to there’s only been a couple guys I’ve tried to talk out of retiring at the time that they did you know it was DC and Habib um you know Henry’s been off for three years he looked great tonight against the guy who’s much bigger much stronger um but you know that’s up to him whatever he wants I mean I don’t think he should have retired the first time but um you know if he decides to retire a second time I probably wouldn’t argue with him and when’s the next time you’re coming back to the east coast and I’m not afraid to beg um yeah we’re talking about Boston this summer so yeah awesome thank you very much Dana over to your far right way over here yep um I want to ask about a little incident we saw last weekend uh Conor McGregor kind of came back a little bit he was in the ring in another promotion in bare knuckle what were your thoughts on on Conor’s activities that weekend yeah no listen you know a few people have asked me this you know when you’re in the business like we’re in the business sometimes it’s fun to just go and be a fan and I think uh I think that’s what Conor was doing that night I have no problem that whatsoever have we any movement on when that Chandler fight is going to happen I know we just saw the announcement that The Ultimate Fighter is going to air in a few weeks yeah any more news we don’t not yet no and I wanted to ask as well your business partner KSI back in the ring next week do you think he’s going to win um who’s he fighting uh guide 9-0 Joe Fournier interesting I have no idea I have no idea thank you thank you hey Dana yep uh after the fight marav devolish feely he took Sean O’Malley’s jacket he’s currently the number one ranked bantamweight what plans do you have for him for his next fight I don’t know he doesn’t want to fight aljo you know what I mean so I I have no idea was that fight offered Universal Joe yeah you could have that fight tomorrow yeah Dana over here yep speaking of cross promotionals I saw the UFC Twitter account retweeted a couple weeks ago a promotion from a skateboarding Championship Series right um there’s a few connections we noticed it was on Rumble so with the slap fighting there was that’s it for Tad perhaps and it turns out that Lorenzo Fertitta is one of the owners of That League or of one of the promotions in that I’m not sure the exact details of that what was the UFC’s decision to do that was this like a favor for a friend does Endeavor have a part in this Lorenzo and I own it you’re into part of it yeah okay we own a company called 301 we own Ridiculousness we own SLS we own Nitro Circus and we own Travis Pastrana’s nrx rally car okay didn’t know that so that’s going to be just a staple in the cross promotion like slap fighting has been the staff power League I don’t know if I feel like it yes Fair um also getting into the slot fighting promotion um not exactly how you probably envisited working in the base some good some bad a lot of you know publicity negative your own issues as well how is this playing forward into the next season we saw promotions of it on there it’s been incredible the deal that I just cut for for slap is bigger than the UFC deal we cut with Spike TV after the first season The Ultimate Fighter I don’t give a what the media says about it they don’t matter so money wise it’s working out is what you’re saying basically it’s unbelievable not only is it unbelievable money-wise it’s been unbelievable as far as social media goes we’re number one in all of sports and when I say all the sports if you take the NFL the NBA the NHL F1 WWE and who am I forgetting and added them all together their numbers don’t compare to slaps um yeah yeah that seems a little doubtful yeah you can doubt it all you want I mean I mean it’s covering for the finale of it and I saw the numbers on Rumble and you there were people watching but there were people watching it did 3.2 million viewers and 1.7 million of them had never been to rumble before well I was one of those that’s for sure thank you I appreciate it but it certainly that number didn’t show up on that counter that Rumble but that’s how it works when you stream when it’s streaming it’s not really the actual number right there um it’s the same thing when you go live on Instagram I mean is Eric in here what’s a what’s a like if you have a big number and you’re streaming uh how does that exactly work right yeah so he was saying 21 000 concurrents what’s a massive number when you’re streaming I mean we were the biggest stream on a Saturday for slap the good thing is is that most of you guys don’t understand social media and how it works and who do what what publication are you from MMA Mania okay we’ll I’ll give you the numbers on slap that were done by a third party that does this we didn’t pull the numbers these guys are like the nielsens numbers for for social media we destroy everything in sports with powerslap okay and are you at all concerned that it some of it is perhaps and I this is I’ll apologize in advance because it sounds a little rude but no fire away some of it might be laughing at not with kind of a deal like bad publicity being you know do you think I give a I just did a deal that’s bigger than the Ulta than the UFC did when they went on Spike TV I don’t give a Who’s Laughing you know who’s laughing this guy there you go that’s Who’s Laughing dad answered my question thank you no my pleasure Dana right here just second row on your left yeah just wondering your thoughts on the atmosphere tonight in Newark and the fight week in general and do you want to come back here yeah it was awesome um you know it’s been a while since we’ve been here um we’ll be in Atlantic City next we’ll be back in Jersey and we’re doing Atlantic City next so um we have a great relationship with the governor here he’s been awesome to us and yeah can’t wait and then my other question is About mavsar Eve Lov he got a he got the win over he got a good win and a close fight against Diego Lopez you just talk about him his potential and what you think about him all around yeah no he’s a stud man let me tell you what that arm bar was deep and that knee bar was deep and uh you know he fought out of both of those and uh you know he’s 17-0 now and I’m excited to see him top ten see where he ends up on Tuesday after the media uh you know does their thing thank you yeah thank you Dana congratulations on another fabulous card in the New York City area uh November at the Garden has become a staple but you’ve done uh three events in the last nine months in the area any plans to go back to Long Island maybe Brooklyn maybe Newark uh to do two events in this area once a year what’s the question any plans to do multiple events in the New York area outside of outside of Jersey in New York you mean the New York area yeah Madison Square Garden is absolutely uh Atlantic City MSG um and uh yeah I don’t other than that I don’t know right now but those two for sure okay in a quick uh Point aljo mentioned uh perhaps going to the Caribbean having a king of the islands uh thing what do you think about going to the Caribbean I think that sounds fun but uh highly unlikely uh yeah I bet you my entire staff will want to work that event but uh I don’t know if it’s going to happen Al Joe said the same thing yeah yeah I would love it thank you thank you sir Dana question Henry was just so close tonight great Main Event if he does stay I know you guys had a brief conversation in the cage if he does stay what do you know it’s hard to say but two two wins one win and he’s right back in the title convention how do you see his path if he doesn’t retire it is tough to say it would you know depend on who he fought what weight class he was in how he did I mean there’s just a lot of a lot of ifs on on something like that but uh you know coming off a three-year layoff like he has you know and again when you think about when you think about what an incredible athlete Henry sahuto is and he’s coming off a three-year layoff and you look at this this tough fight he was in tonight and then you look at Jon Jones and what Jon Jones did that’s why you just can’t really say it enough how special and how incredible John I know I know you asked me about Henry and I flipped this whole thing into a Jon Jones but it’s just so true and one of the things about Jones too I for some reason I was thinking about this tonight during the fight and uh like when he fought Alexander Gustafson it was the first time he’d ever been taken into deep water and and you know John uh outside the cage didn’t make all the best decisions and who knows how hard he really trained for that fight or what he was doing before that fight but to dog it out the way that he did it’s just like you think about all the great fights that happen and you think about the stuff that Jon Jones does pretty special I know I didn’t answer your question but this is where we ended up sorry Dana right down the middle yeah we haven’t had an update on either Rose namayunas or Dustin Poirier in a while do you have anything planned for them in the coming months not off the top of my head no thank you thank you you guys done with me go ahead sir um so this is the first time we’ve had algerman Sterling as the headliner of a pay-per-view or really of any of that actually so how do you feel about him as as carrying an event here that’s hilarious um yeah I mean it was sold out highest grossing event in the Arena’s history supporting event um you know it’s good it was good it was a good fight I mean people knew stylistically I mean crowd it’s in his hometown and people were cheering for Henry I don’t know what that means but uh yeah you know at the end of the day no matter what anybody thinks of either one of these guys the one thing you did know though would be a damn good fight one thing he’s been trying to do for many years as you know is is trying to get a fight in New York and he’s had some issues with the the commissions and the Medicals and that kind of thing is that something that you know you can kind of work with the commission for to try and kind of expedite things in any meaningful way to kind of because he fights everywhere else yeah yeah I mean uh obviously we would if he wants to fight in New York we do everything we could to try to make it happen I mean but you know the commission tells us what we’re going to do we don’t tell them what we’re going to do of course yeah um one more thing about Main Events here we hit we are finally going to have a flyweight non-title main event for the first time in six years uh is that something you kind of realize as you’re as you’re planning these events that we really haven’t gone to flyweight to headline these fight night cards no never crossed my mind at all there’s a lot of demand for these fights people like the the flyweights they’re they’re exciting they’re fun uh is that something you might think about planning more in the future what is your question I’m confused by this to have more flyweight um you know Headliners and that kind of thing especially on Fight Night cards sure all right yeah just two quick pause yeah um speaking of bantamweights do you know what the latest with Umar and her Mega Med office everybody was asking yeah we were talking about him earlier um you know that’s a that’s a guy not everybody’s beating the door down to fight so yeah we’ll we’ll figure something out with him how difficult is it when you have guys like that they’re just it’s really tough to get them their breakthrough fight 100 100 especially when you know it’s always hard when you have these guys that are in you know in the top 10 you know when you start going seven six five four and then this guy’s behind that you know nobody wants to take that risk on a guy that isn’t ranked it’s it’s it’s tough those are the fights listen those are the fights that publicly everybody says they’ll take but privately nobody wants to take them yeah and just last thing uh I want to drop a stop for you with Henry sahuto’s loss tonight fighters who are over 35 below the welterweight division are 2 and 29 in title fights and Tyron Woodley got both those wins uh what does that kind of say about how difficult it is for aging Fighters at the lower divisions fascinating I mean yeah I don’t know I never thought about it till right now but um yeah it’s interesting it’s it listen I don’t care who you are how good you are whatever the deal is taking three years off Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali was off for three years he never looked the same when he came back he was still great still did amazing things but never looked like he looked before he took three years off it’s tough to do and and I don’t know I mean a lot of you guys in here are Combat Sports guys might might know the answer this but um who other than Jon Jones has taken three years off and come back and looked as incredible as he did go in there and finish a guy in the heavyweight division a division in which he’s never fought before as quickly and as easily as he did maybe George Saint Pierre but he had a tough time with Bisping too yeah I mean I don’t know if anybody’s ever done it like Jon Jones yeah it’s only the greatest ones ever so yeah that’s the show thank you cool thank you good night everybody