UFC 106 Aftermath: Dana White sounds off on MMA judging
“The guys are filing in here right now, we’ll get this thing started. Forrest is going to be a little while, he’s getting some stitches on that cut. Great night of fights, we had 10,529 people, we did a gate of 3 million bucks. I’ll go through Fights of the Night, uh, you know I just want to say something before I announce the winners of the bonus checks, you know, Koscheck and I will say publicly have had a lot of, we’ve butted heads a lot behind the scenes and I got to tell you tonight I was blown away with his performance, um. You know, I have to publicly say this kid always steps up, always wants to fight, will fight the best in the world and uh wow, I’m blown away with his performance tonight, so… I made Fight of the Night Koscheck/Johnson, they’ll win $70,000 for that fight. Submission of the night, Josh Koscheck another $70,000 for Josh and Knockout of the Night goes to Nogueira.”
Q: “What did you think of the decision in the main event and how long do we have to wait for a third fight?”
Dana White: “Yeah, uh, you know, the judging is … listen, you know, the fight could have gone either way, 30-27? I mean that’s crazy, you know Tito and I were just talking about that, the 30-27 score is outrageous, it’s insane. I can understand Forrest getting a 10-8 in that last round, um, he dominated the round and Tito hardly threw any punches in that last round but for anybody to call that fight 30-27 man, you’re out of your mind.”
Q: “Is there a hesitancy to make a fight, what have you seen in the past as far as making three with the same two guys, is there kind of a drop off in attention span?”
Dana White: “No, I think that you know the bottom line is you know both of those fights were great fights, they’re both close, you know, I think there is a rubber match there.”
Q: “And then after the Welterweight fight, you know Josh says what he says, he believes he should get the next shot. I know you can’t, we always do this after every press conference, but what do you think?”
“Yeah, listen, Koscheck’s in the mix. I said it to open this thing I was you know I was impressed with everybody here tonight, you know, this is the first time the American fans have seen Nogueira fight, he looked awesome you know everybody knows how good Luiz Cane is, you know Koscheck, Koscheck blew me away tonight I was really blown away by his performance. He, you know, you know what Koscheck could have done? Koscheck could have come out and you know he got hit with a couple of big punches, right in the beginning of the round, he could have went for the takedown, pushed him against the fence, try to stall and rough him up, you know you see all that time, he didn’t, he stood right in the middle of the Octagon and tried to bang with him, when they got down the ground he went for the submission I mean I was blown away with his performance tonight, so he looked great and you know he’s in the mix.”
(Addressing Little Nogueira vs. Luiz Cane): “I didn’t know, you know, I was excited for that fight, I said the other day when I did the media tour that I thought that had the potential to be Fight of the Night, too, and uh you know he completely dominated him in the stand-up, I have a lot of respect for Luiz Cane’s stand-up and Nog looked awesome, not only physically did he look in great shape, he looked awesome in that fight, I was very impressed with him.”
Question on Tito/Forrest II: “Dana, um, how did you score the fight?” Did a lot of people thought the first round could have gone either way.”
Dana White: “Yeah it did, it was a close first round, first round’s tough to score, as soon as that fight got over, all of us were sitting down, we were like that was a tough round to score, Tito clearly won the second round, um, like I said at the end of the day I’m not a judge and it’s hard when you’re sitting there watching it I’ll give you a name example, I talked about at the Q & A the other day when Lorenzo and I flew to England we re-scored the Machida/Shogun fight and you know we both scored it either 4 to 1 or worst case scenario 3 to 2 for Shogun so, you know I’m seeing I got to watch the fight again but when you’re sitting there it’s tough and I’m not a judge, so I don’t really sit there and look for what the judges are looking for.”
Q: “So, do you bring in new judges?”
Dana White: “I don’t do that.”
Question on Amir Sadollah/Phil Baroni: “And can you also comment on Amir’s fight? What did you think about that?”
Dana White: “They had a great fight, you know, Amir went in there tonight against a tough veteran, you know, let me tell you what, since the last time Phil Baroni fought in the UFC, this guy must send me a thousand texts a month, you know, he wants to be in the UFC so bad and wanted to come back and fight and Baroni’s a tough guy, let me tell you what, Baroni took some shots tonight, wouldn’t go down, stood in there even though he was gassed and Amir picked him apart, Amir fought a great fight tonight you know, it was a good win and a good night for Amir.”
Related Videos:
Comments