Posted in: MMA, Opinion, Sports, TV, TV | Tagged: dana white, Dana White's Power Slap, endeavor, espn, TBS, ufc

UFC Has a Dana White Issue & a Poor Track Record on Domestic Violence

The UFC needs to take a look in the mirror and take an actual, hardline stance against domestic violence to keep growing.

UFC is not starting 2023 off on a good foot. Per TMZ, UFC president Dana White was caught on camera in an altercation with his wife, Anne. In the video, the two can be seen having a conversation, and then Anne striking Dana. Dana then takes an angry step toward his wife and slaps her back, and then it gets a bit muddled, but it looks like he strikes her again as the pair is separated. TMZ gave White a chance to apologize publicly, where he said there was "no excuse" for that behavior. To his credit, he took responsibility for his actions, even though he may have been blaming it on alcohol. Anne also released a statement: "Dana and I have been married for almost 30 years. To say this is out of character for him is an understatement — nothing like this has ever happened before. Unfortunately, we were both drinking too much on New Year's Eve, and things got out of control on both sides. We've talked this through as a family and apologized to each other. I just hope people will respect our privacy for the sake of our kids."

UFC Has A Poor, At Best, track Record With Domestic Violence

So what has the UFC, a sports league worth around $9 billion, had to say about this situation? Nothing. When asked for comment, they point to the above TMZ article. That's it. No comment from Endeavor, who purchased controlling interest in the UFC in 2016 for $4 billion, nothing from ESPN, who has exclusive broadcast rights to the MMA promotion and has barely reported on the incident, with one article on the TMZ post, and that's it. "There's one thing that you never bounce back from, and that's putting your hands on a woman," White said in 2014 when asked about how the UFC would handle the Ray Rice situation. But is that true in the UFC?

The stigma around MMA and the UFC is that the people who participate in the sport have a reputation for being savages and bullies. It is hard to argue against that sometimes. Several athletes in both the UFC and MMA, in general, have been involved in domestic violence situations. The UFC's response to those situations has been all over the map. Big names like Thiago Silva, Jon Jones, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Anthony Johnson, and more were all either accused, arrested, or convicted of various domestic violence charges. Most were sent home or cut from the UFC, only to be welcomed back later or once more time had passed. In the case of Silva, White went on camera and said he would "never" fight in the UFC again, only to be back at the promotion a couple of months later.

Look no further than January 2019 to see a stark example of how the UFC approaches domestic violence issues. January 19th, 2019, saw UFC on ESPN 1 take place from the Barclays Center in New York. Huge night, a big debut as part of the new broadcast agreement between the UFC and ESPN, and one of the featured fighters was Greg Hardy, making his debut with the promotion. Hardy was an NFL player with a checkered history at best, including a conviction for the assault of a female and communicating threats. The details of that case were disturbing and eventually led to his NFL career ending. The charges were expunged from his record a year later when the victim failed to show up for an appeal hearing.

That they would give this man a job fighting is terrible enough, but when you look at the rest of that card, another name jumps out at you: Rachael Ostovich. Just two months before this card took place, Ostovich's husband at the time assaulted her for over nine minutes, being punched in the head multiple times and suffering numerous bruises and a broken eye. A recording of the assault was released, where her husband could be heard saying, "I'm going to murder you. I'm going to f–king murder you.". Sadly, Arnold Beardon only received four years probation for the crime.

Bizarrely, the UFC compounded the matter by putting them both on the same fight card that January 19th night. How tone-deaf could you be? When asked about the decision to put them on the same card, White said this: "I called Rachael Ostovich and talked to her, walked her through the situation," White said. "Her take was, 'His story isn't my story. Everybody's story is different. I believe in second chances. I have no problem fighting on the same card as this guy.' He didn't have anything to do with Rachael Ostovich, so she was totally cool with it."

In four years, he went from, "There's one thing that you never bounce back from, and that's putting your hands on a woman" to calling a victim of horrific domestic violence on the phone to walk her through the situation of fighting the same night as Greg Hardy. Ostovich had to answer questions about it for weeks before and after the card, saying, "I believe in second chances." She lost her fight against Paige VanZant that night.

So far, since the video and Dana White's apology on TMZ, the only "consequence" White has faced involves his new Slap Fight "league," Dana White's Power Slap. It was set to debut on TBS after AEW wrestling on January 11th and instead has been delayed one week to January 18th. A stupid idea, anyway, that has seen the man himself and the UFC mocked for even putting their weight behind it, and you can imagine the comments under posts about the league right now. Yahoo Sports MMA writer Kevin Iole suggested that White should step away from the UFC "for a month," which really is not a punishment at all. Since the Endeavor buy-out, White doesn't even attend every card anymore and can sometimes spend months away at a time anyway, without anyone noticing. He didn't even take a week off from his "Fuck It Friday" food-tasting videos on Instagram this week.

I love the UFC and MMA. At one time, I would even have said I was a fan of Dana White, whatever that actually means. But after this, the ongoing fighter pay argument, and other questionable calls by the UFC president, when can we say that they don't need him anymore? I think it is now. He should get more than a week's delay of his slap league for this matter, apology or not. The UFC operates despite him at this point, and in my opinion, Endeavor should step in here and tell the athletes and people working for them no, this is not okay. If you do something bad, there will be consequences—no special treatment for bigger stars or executives. Being "gracefully" shown the door would damage his legacy, but so did his actions themselves already.

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