Recently, the UFC has caught some heat due to two fight card placements for their premiere event with ESPN in Brooklyn on January 19.
The fights in question are the ones involving new UFC heavyweight prospect and former NFL star, Greg Hardy and flyweight prospect Rachael Ostovich.
Both fighters happen to have their histories with domestic violence. Problem is that they’re on the opposite sides of it with Hardy being the abuser and Ostovich the recent victim (separate cases).
After some backlash from the MMA community on the decision to place the fighters on the same card, UFC President Dana White and the company have been somewhat under fire. Although the UFC boss denies such an issue.
“So we’ve been building this ESPN card for a while, and he was one of the guys we had planned on putting on that card,” White said in a media scrum (via TSN). “But no it wasn’t booked [at the same time]. Then she came off the card.
“I’m not gonna talk about Greg Hardy anymore. I already covered this. I’m not playing this bullsh*t with you guys. He’s on the UFC roster. He’s on the UFC roster. Period, end of story. He’s on the roster.
“Listen! You guys want to be sensitive about sh*t, anybody can be sensitive about anything,” White continued. “You can make an issue about everything. The weird thing is you guys give a f*ck…but she doesn’t. She doesn’t care. You know what she said yesterday in her statement? ‘Please stop asking me about this. I want to focus on training. I don’t want this to be an issue for me. I don’t know this guy. This guy has nothing to do with me. I have nothing to do with this guy. This guy’s never done anything to me,’”
Dana White has never been one to hold back how he feels about a certain subject, situation or his own fighters…obviously.
As for ESPN’s side of things, according to Ariel Helwani, they have and are privately speaking about the decision with the UFC.
“This isn’t an issue,” White stated. “*pointing* You, you, you and a lot of other people are making this an issue. It’s not an issue for her. She doesn’t have an issue with this. She actually doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“If you guys want to keep bringing this up and making it an issue, you can. And I get it, it probably gets hits and it probably does well for you guys, I get it. But she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. So that’s the end of the story. I’m done with it. I’m done with it.
“Nobody’s been put off by it,” White exclaimed. “Listen to me, do you know how many people have contacted me? Like three. Like, him *points*, him and one other guy. Those are the three. Who’s put off by it? Oh yeah, cause social media is where you go to find out where the real people are talking about real stuff and what real people really care about…is on social media.”
On January 19, Rachael Ostovich will be making her third UFC appearance as she welcomes Paige VanZant back to action. As for Greg Hardy, he will be welcomed to the Octagon by Allen Crowder who makes his second UFC appearance.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 12/7/2018