Dana White took questions from the press at the official Power Slap 5 post-match press conference following the event on …
all right guys uh Vern Wesley drain Sheena and Dell got bonuses tonight they all won $10,000 congratulations to them what’s up buddy up Dana uh I know everyone’s got a lot of questions I just have one for for a story I’m working on um and I think we have talked about it but the Polynesian presence the Islanders to have two Headliners in in the main event um the energy that they have brought whether it’s on the table or in the crowd for all five events can you just speak to the influence they have on this sport yeah obviously it’s it’s uh it’s big you know we we we got we got a lot of talent coming out of Hawaii and we’ve been talking a long time about you know UFC events over there we’re actually actively working right now to bring a power slap event over to Hawaii so yes I agree with you and uh we get it we actually for for this event we ran some commercials in Buffalo during the Buffalo Bills games and we ran uh commercials on uh in Hawaii too for this event hi Dana over here hey um I’ve been asking you I think every event about the women we finally got to see a women’s match and I’m just curious how did that come about because it seems like it came you know kind of short notice but I don’t know how long you’ve been working on that yeah we we were working on it and then finally pulled it off last minute you know um obviously Sheena is a beast so we wanted to find somebody that we felt could compete and we found her tonight I mean that that that was that was a damn good fight and a damn good finish are you worried about being able to find more women yes yeah she might have to start fighting guys uh she is nasty I mean she said she down she was down for that so I think she prefers we’re definitely not down for that um but uh yeah we’re going to have to find somebody out there there’s somebody out there in the world that can come face her um you had three Champions that retain their title and a brand new Champion can you kind of talk to me about those fights and if anybody stood out for you I I mean I thought the Wolverine turp fight was awesome I mean so good uh when you think about how tough Wolverine is you know turp rocked him twice uh turp finally got rocked but when you really look at turp and how young he is in the sport I kid’s the real deal he’s not just a lunati he actually has a good chin and uh an incredible slap Deontay Wilder was here and he um posted on Instagram that he thinks he might make a career out of this how serious do you think he is not very we ain’t got that kind of money yet we’re doing all right but we ain’t doing that all right any uh chances of a celebrity power slop Edition I I think it’s inevitable I think it’ll eventually happen that we will get celebrities doing it yeah um you know I brought up this question to some of the Champions about a potential if they thought that Champions should automatically get to slap first I’m wondering what your thoughts are on that champ gets a slap first I like the coin toss I like it to be random um uh you know one of the big uh misconceptions about this thing in the beginning is that the guy that slaps first wins every time and tonight it was like three three and four or something like that three for four uh that went first won won the fight and I got to ask about uh you know the breaking news from last night Jon Jones out can you talk to me a little bit about how you found out and the kind of the process to make a new fight yeah John called said that he hurt his shoulder uh you know training and wrestling and they his team thought that you know you just need a few days off and you’ll be fine and whatever he he felt like something was really wrong flew out here did the MRI found out what was wrong and uh you know he was super emotional about it really upset and uh you know we did what we do and flipped it and made another fight I think the fans are you know as excited for that heavyweight fight how do you think it’s going to go yeah that’s one of those if you know you know I mean it’s it’s a badass fight with two young studs and uh that’s going to be a fun one I think a lot of people want to know um if Stipe was offered to fight one of them or if he decided he wanted to wait for Jones Stipe is not fighting for an inter room title you know what I mean I I I wouldn’t so Janes said I want to fight steep I said you’re fighting Stipe this is you have the greatest heavyweight of all time versus the greatest mixed martial artist of all time this is a legacy fight for both of those guys I mean to even call Stipe and ask Stipe to fight for an interim title is you know complete disrespect this this is a fight for two legends legacy two of the greatest to ever do it fans want to see it I want to see it and they both want to do it so yeah last question for me uh you think maybe that could be the fight to put on UFC 300 is that kind of the time frame you think I’m not thinking about anything until I know how John’s surgery goes he’s got to have surgery so got to get through the surgery see how fast he recovers he was very very serious he’s like I literally want to do the surgery this week so he wants to go get this thing done and start rehabbing and and start working his way back thank you thanks Dana real quick I got one more on I know you you leave it to the doctors and then the refs up on the table but it seemed like because of one quick stumble they called on Nate do you think it was premature do you think he could have gotten maybe a 15 20 seconds to recover based on whatever the rules and regulations it just seemed a little premature I don’t disagree with you I I think that you know the count you know he was obviously hurt you could have gave him a few more seconds to let him get himself together and recover and see how he was um I mean it happens in the UFC it’s definitely going to happen here you know this thing but if you look at eight months nine months however long we’ve been doing this right it’s not a long time the athletes have involved have evolved already and and uh you know the first uh we did a practice run with this to see how it would go there were so many fouls it was insane it was just foul after foul after foul and we didn’t even know we were looking at fouls back then we we didn’t even know but the athletic commission has worked hard on this thing to get it to get good at we were just talking about next year we’re going to open up probably uh six or seven states next year will be sanctioned and uh that’s when we’ll start traveling this thing around and doing Gates and we were talking tonight the Nevada State athletic commission has gotten so good at this we’re actually going to have to travel with them in the beginning to help educate the other commissions on how to uh not just judge but ref and catch and all that good Dan over here I just want to ask you about uh the Bell I mean he’s a guy he’s 21 years old he’s on top of the heavyweight Division and he balances a school life I mean what are your takes on all of that yeah no this guy is the real deal he’s tough man he’s got a good chin and obviously he’s got incredible knockout power and even when he was coaching uh because he was too young to be on the show he was uh everybody was saying that he’s the future of this thing and he could be a big star and he could be dominant and I think tonight definitely showed that and after uh Wolverine and turpin’s match I mean it was a pretty entertaining match is that one you consider running back or or how do you see it no doubt about it like I said tp’s young in in this in this game he just started Wolverine’s been around forever and uh Not only was did did he prove tonight that he’s the real deal he’s not just a lunatic he’s he’s he’s actually real he’s good um but you could tell he got on Wolverine’s head because of the way Wolverine was acting tonight that’s not his personality but T turp had him fired up tonight and uh I have an interesting one from outside of tonight I know you uh kind of touched up on Michael Venom page last week there’s another free agent out there Dylan danis he’s been very vocal about wanting to fight for you guys even went on Piers Morgan and said that his plan is to just go fight for you he’s mentioned you on social media post and you had guys like sha Elli saying it’d be an interesting signing I mean is that someone you’d like to work with Dylan Donis I don’t know I I actually haven’t even thought about that Dana yeah Frank and Erica assembled probably the best talent of any of the cards yet here tonight let’s talk about the growth of when you started the athletes to where it’s come today and the excitement that it was this even yeah no I agree I mean tonight’s card was awesome um and uh yeah no they’ve done a great job matchmaking finding Talent you I you know uh we just uh we just wrapped season two of the show and uh we’re happy we think we’re going to we got some guys that are legit that are going to be damn good and he’s starting to find people now from all over the world that that are into this and uh our next big event is going to be Super Bowl weekend you know got the Super Bowl here we’re going to do like a a Friday slap Saturday UFC Sunday Super Bowl weekend so looking forward to that uh these guys are going to start building that card here next couple weeks that’s huge um we know series two for the reality series it was just filmed can you give us any any uh insight as to how that’s going and and will this it’s done we wrapped we wrapped uh yesterday yesterday was the last day of filming will this lead into that that event will we see the coaches Chris Thomas and emman Emanuel munes headline possibility yeah possibility how’s the uh how’s the betting for power slap been going been great I mean if you see the post that we’re doing literally everybody carries it you got from from DraftKings to uh rubette to every Casino in Vegas carrying it um you know the fighters been talking a lot about uh you know double Champions going up and down in weight um is that something that you’d be open to to seeing like a a two-weight class champion in power slap I I I’m not a big fan of two-weight Champions in anything um it would take like somebody just asked me the question the other day you know before the Islam vul fight if vul won would I be cool with him uh you know being a dual Bell Champion he’s a guy that yes I would absolutely consider it because likes to stay active he’s a guy that will take you saw what he did last weekend take a fight uh you know on a couple weeks notice and he’s a Savage so it all depends on who what they’ve done where they’re at in their career things like that yeah um you know outside of the heavyweight matches we had Ryan Phillips coming back from a severe injury that could have been lifethreatening going up against Darius the Destroyer um can you comment on that you know match in particular and what you thought about Ryan’s return yeah you know I I like that kid a lot he’s a bit of a Maniac you know when he’s up there but he’s very into the sport he’s very into helping the sport he’s into helping other athletes uh that are participating in the sport so it was it was good to see him go out and uh perform against you know a legend like daras one last one the UFC has a VR Fan Experience debuting in Horizon meta world coming up here really shortly will we see something like power slap going to that a Fan Experience potential VR game guys the the video game on this thing it broke every record the slap video game has broken every record and you’re talking like if you think about the games that are out there FIFA and you know that that are on mobile phones and uh Call of Duty and all these other games where’s Frank I mean rattle off some of the stats on this on this game awesome thank you so yeah yeah I could see us doing a lot of things as far as video games go thing has been a a monster success so yeah Dana to your left right here yeah um you’ve also obviously talked about the MSG sphere and how you want to host NOA UFC in the next uh year or two um I’m not big on hypothetical but suppose you got all the production stuff ready to go and everything was ready to go at the MSG Sphere for you would you rather host a power slap event there first or a UFC event um UFC event I’m I’m All focused and dialed in on the UFC event there um I am working on something with them with the sphere though yeah with slap I mean do you care to elaborate on what you’re picking up right now no not not until it’s even close to being done but yeah all right sounds good thank you thank you go ahead brother you yep um Shea she just won she just became the first woman to win poers lab how important and and she looks Savage and how important do you do you think she’s going to be to the powers lab to the like being the face of this sport yeah well like we were just saying earlier I think she’s going to be huge for the sport it’s just we go to we got to try and find her some opponents that that’s the problem it’s like uh when women’s MMA started that there weren’t a lot of girls out there and then when you had uh a show like Invicta that actually worked on on uh building female Talent it was it was a huge help and uh I don’t know how you build female Talent here it’s all part of the The Growing Pains that we’ll have and as we start to take this thing you know this thing’s grown so fast like what he’s telling you about the video game that we broke all the records and and it’s the biggest video game they’ve ever done and they do every mobile video game it just tells you that this thing is going to grow and it’s going to get bigger and you know the numbers that we pull on social media I mean you knew that the numbers we pull on social media are so crazy everybody thought I was lying the first time that I that I talked about it publicly and then um you know when you look at the numbers that we pull on the events in different territories it’s massive I mean you’re talking in the hundreds of millions to the tens of millions depending on where we are so if you look at you know all the things that are going on it tells you this thing’s going to be big over the next five years UFC did start with faleo division with the 115 pound Division and poers SLP did it start with 145 what’s the difference and are you planning to have more female divisions in the near future here I don’t understand the question what’s what’s the question well I need to find another female in that weight class first uh no sorry uh but the difference when UFC did did open the female divisions UFC did start with 115 pound and po lap did start with 145 pounds division what’s the difference why did UFC start with 115 pounds and power lap with 145 pounds I think the difference is about 30 pounds uh other than that I don’t know what the difference is uh that that we found Sheena and you know she has to cut she has to cut weight to make that weight um and and and it’s brand new we’ve only done five events um you know this thing is were eight or nine months old so all these things are going to take time it’s just we found her she showed up uh a couple other girls showed up the first time we started uh doing the trials to you know to to test this thing and we knew immediately from the first slap with the girl that did the somersault we’re like holy this this girl is a beast you know and like she was saying earlier look how hard it was for us to to find another opponent we pulled one out last minute and she was a good opponent but this is all going to take time it’s all very brand new around 10 years ago you said that UFC would never have a female division now UFC has four way divisions and now Powers La have one uh if you could back if you could go back 10 years ago and talk to yourself about that what would you say to yourself I’d say the same thing because you got to imagine what what a lot of people that that thing can be taken out of context because of time that you know the period in which I said it at that time I was trying to sell people on men fighting in a cage people hated it and didn’t like it sponsors hated it and didn’t like it the thought of women doing it you know it it was not even remotely a possibility at that time as far as I was concerned then I met Ronda fair enough um JN Walker just said in the Brazilian interviewed that he was offered to fight anal in November in New York UFC 295 how close are you guys to close the deal yeah that’s not happening He he’ll he’ll fight in another event but it’s definitely not going to be New York okay Paulo CA was asking to fight this year do you think it’s possible when you see his elbow yeah I I don’t know I mean like I said in the leadup to that fight in Abu Dhabi his his his injury is very serious man it’s it’s bad I mean if you even saw the pictures online I don’t know it’s all going to be determined by how quickly he heals and and uh what doctors say about it thank you last one for me do you have any update about Charles is he still does he still have the uh stat status of the KN for title yeah so this is that’s that’s all going to be determined by uh his cut was a pretty nasty cut it was pretty deep the the thing that’s really good about it is he went to a plastic surgeon so they sewed it up from the inside out and uh hopefully that’s that’s going to help it heal faster and heal properly I’ve just got one to add to the the um Sheena she mentioned that she would actually like to slap Ronda in a match oh Jesus um you know considering considering the two of of them are the first of you know their kind would that be anything you think that Ronda would even entertain no kind I don’t think Rhonda would I actually talked to Rhonda today and uh you know R Rhonda’s in family mode right now you know she’s she’s having kids and they’re building a farm and doing all this stuff that she used to dream of so Rhonda’s in a really good place in her life and uh I could not be happier for hey Dana yeah when you first started this thing you ate a lot of crap online but now it’s been five events five Champions a video game a TV series and now the expansion into the women’s league tons of sponsors tons of sponsors what more do you need to finally say I told you so I don’t even need to say it I don’t even need to say it um yeah no it’s it’s awesome you mentioned before that you guys are getting a record-breaking amount of applicants trying to get into the sport do you any idea any idea what the percentage of women of applicants are coming in at Erica so there’s hope that there’s room to grow there yeah listen two two things first of all it’s extremely popular like I said before um what we were just talking about on how many sponsors are on board here which we’ll be announcing another one here pretty soon um a big one and uh the video game The Views this thing’s here to stay it’s real and and and there’s real money in this thing now so as we continue to to to get sanctioning now we’ll go into other states then we’ll go to other countries I had a meeting this morning about going to another country this is moving really fast and and when this type of stuff happens people will start to gravitate to it because there’s real some of these guys are starting to quit their jobs now and focus full-time on training and it’s getting real real fast KO Chris was in the building today I know a lot of people have been waiting to see his return any update to when we’re going to see him slap again Frank Erica huh soon thank you Dana that’s it for me thanks buddy appreciate it go ahead sir hey Dan Dana so wait get him first sorry about that um based on those uh performance bonuses tonight uh poop always has great knockouts right how hard was it to pick just those four performance bonuses tonight yeah well uh Frank did it so I don’t know how hard it was for him uh last one for me and Dana um how soon or how far away are we from seeing uh dagani slappers no true you probably listen Russians I mean this stuff started in Russia and Poland you know big in South Africa the the woman tonight was from South Africa um and we’re going to do season three in Abu Dhabi and we’ll be bringing in people from all over the world and you know it’s all going to heat up quick man we get we got a great season two coming with a lot of talent that we’re excited about then we do season three over there and you know when you start start looking at where we are right now in 9 months we’re doing a big story coming up here at the end of the year about a lot of stuff that’s going on and when that story drops and you start to hear all the stuff that’s happening and then you look at it and it’ll be by the time the story drops it’ll probably be have been 11 months or 12 months and you think about the next two years how how how big this thing is going to be it’s it’s pretty mindboggling thanks awesome thank you yep Dana um Wolverine after his fight saying said that he wants to get pushed more he feels like AJ was pushed in their fight he feels like Turpin was pushed in his fight he wants to be the guy pushed in the fight do you think like what do you think of that and I guess like do you want him to have a little bit more of a personality for for you to push him well you know how I feel about that stuff even in the fight business you know if you walk into this Sport and you can fight and you got a Conor McGregor personality or a Ronda Rousey personality it’s incredible it’s awesome or you come in and you’re very quiet and subtle but you’re a killer that’s all that matters to me man is is your performance I uh I don’t ask anybody to not be themselves be you whoever you are be you and just be good um Darius lost again and I just want to know like you know obviously you’ve been watching the sport for a while like is he having a hard time adapting to the power slap rules and also do you think he has to go back to like another slap League to like you know the Bellator of uh of slapping uh uh I don’t know yeah it’s an interesting question um it’s I don’t know you know we you know you think about how long the guy’s been in a sport finally gets to the big stage in the big time and he’s having a rough time performing I don’t know the answer to that question uh budlight is back with the UFC how uh I guess how easy was that and then also where your DMs and comments filled with uh people wanting to boycott yeah listen I believe me if you if you think that I got into this thinking that that wouldn’t happen you’re you’re out of your mind um you know people are very opinionated about this and um it’s almost like the in the co thing right through Co what what what did I say during Co somebody’s got to be first I’m you know and and there were reasons why I felt we could be first going through Co knew that we would do it right yada yada yada you know the story um but when it comes to anheiser Bush and Bud Light uh that this was everybody everybody talks about oh you did it for money hey dummies all sponsorship deals are about money okay so when you talk about being a sellout I had multiple deals in front of me so it’s not like oh Bud Light showed up and they were the only option I had to get money you know stupid that is to think that you know this was all about and I said this yesterday I’ll say it again everybody on every side of this deal that were involved other beer companies and everything else absolutely positively know that this was not about money for me we were going to end up with money with no matter who we ended up with for anheiser Bush it was about values core values for me I’m at a point in my life and I’m at a point in my career where nothing is just about money anymore I am very aligned and I saw some other today uh saying uh oh it sounds like uh sounds like they wrote him a a script on what to say nobody writes me a script nobody tells me what to say ever I do things because when when I come out and I say something publicly if you look at every quote right that that I put out you ask lene every quote is me every quote is me everything that’s posted on social media is me and everything that comes out of this mouth is me nobody tells me what to say and nobody tells me what to do ever and the things that I said about anheiser Bush and Bud Light yesterday are absolutely true I am a big military law enforcement guy they have this folds of honor where they’ve they’ spent $44 million over the last however many years Fallen First Responders and military people their families get taken care of with this money scholarships for their kids Etc that is right up my alley almost uh a billion dollars a year go to us Farmers um for their crops for their products that is right up my alley that’s exactly who I am 65,000 Americans are employed by anheiser Bush and thousands of them are vets right up my alley and I could keep going on and on forever and tell you why I am more aligned with anheiser bush than any of the other beer companies that were offering to pay us money and then uh finally for me UFC 5es coming out um one of the biggest critiques and negatives about it is um the roster of the game that’s missing tons of ranked Fighters I know you really don’t have any say in that but like could you push to get more fighters in the game yeah who who’s not in the game that that that we should be upset about like Shawn Brady or Adrien Giannis or Nate lwar all these fun Fighters top fighter top 15 Fighters it’s basically a copy and paste from UFC 4 it’s there’s not there’s missing Fighters well I would assume there’s only so many people you can put in the game so I’ll tell you what do this for me right give me the list of guys that you think should be in the game and give me the list of guys that you think should be taken out to put them in the game well I mean there’s like Paige vanz in the game uh so Paige to go juer figga is in the game who juer figga is in the game okay Bruce Buffer’s in the game can’t take out cold blooded all right who else me get me out of that who else you can say it me and buffer are out who else you and buffer out uh you know who he yeah you you and buffer can yeah yeah Bruce Lee can get out of the game I mean Bruce [Laughter] [Applause] you um so yeah like like Bryce Mell is in the game done I’ll make it happen right me and buffer are out paig is out and uh okay thank you you’re welcome sir we we talked a little bit about just going back to the Jones and the stip it certainly sounds like Jones is ready to go as soon as he gets healed up have we heard from Ste is he is he on board to stick around and wait as long as it takes to to get that match yeah I I you know obviously Stipe has been in training camp you spend time energy and money on this thing when this happens it’s like a um you know obviously he’s very very upset about it and and these Fighters go through a ton of emotions I mean you saw the backstage with Daniel Cormier when when the fight fell out and that that was days before the fight but yeah he’s upset but you know he’s the greatest heavyweight of all time this fight makes sense for him this is a legacy fight this is a fight that you know for both these guys for Jon Jones to beat Stipe at heavyweight it’s massive in his career for Stipe to meet to beat Jon Jones you know and and regain the heavyweight title why would you not want to do that why would you want to do anything else stepe miic is GNA fight in in an interim title fight I mean yeah he’s upset he’s upset and he deserves to be upset but it’s one of those things it’s nobody’s fault Jon Jones wants to fight Jon Jones doesn’t want to have surgery we don’t want the Jon Jones fight to go away with stpe but it is what it is and we all have to deal with it last for me on a more somber note you’ve always been attached to Maine and it’s people the horrible situation that was taking place and I think maybe it’s still ongoing I don’t know if you have any thoughts on it maybe a message for the people up there yeah so that place is probably an hour and a half an hour and 45 minutes from my house so um yeah I would like to you know obviously say to all the families that were affected by this thing up in Maine you know my condolences and it’s horrible especially to happen in one of these you know small towns and in a place like Maine it’s disgusting it’s it’s part of the horrible that goes on in this world that we live in today and you know it’s I don’t even you know it sucks it’s it’s really uh disgusting is the only word I have for it innocent people getting shot for what you know they get them yet I think it’s still I think it’s still ongoing I think they’re still looking for him yeah it’s terrible thanks D yeah thank you guys done with me go ahead brother want to touch back on the on the Jones steep situation obviously you scheduled the interim about between asmano and pavlovich if all goes well and you walk away with an interm Champion that night does that winner just kind of have to set aside for Jones and Steve B fight when that fight’s ready or 100% so here here’s the deal Jones and Stipe were supposed to fight Jones gets hurt right eight nine months he’s going to be out you don’t strip him or uh get take him out of the rankings after a year right so if you’re uh you know start again Ask you’re getting the opportunity to fight for the interim title anyway now so yeah they’re going to have to wait until this fight happens this fight was set up this fight needs to happen two of the biggest Legends in the sport want the fight the fans want the fight so yeah and what would happen say after that fight they both retire what do what do you do with the interim Champion then um yeah listen to to be the man you got to beat the man so whoever wins that fight uh it would be nice to see him stick around and defend it so that we can’t determine until it happens but fair enough and I saw you guys mentioned the bonuses earlier Michael bising had a creative idea on the broadcast saying that maybe there should be a bonus given to the guys who make their opponents hit their head on the table is that something you agree with Jesus Christ no that’s sick that’s demented that will not happen it’s why Mike is an analyst and not uh making any big decisions around here thank you have a good night you guys thank you