The numbers would / will and will continue to suggest otherwise BTW , i agree , White need's replacing , but considering Dana has done as well as he's done being Dana , it would take a brave ****er of a business man to fire him :deal
Lorenzo is available for the professional business side. Dana is essentially the travelling and media ******. Let him get on with it. And yeah Japan is a completely different culture but twitter and pro wrestling?! Really?
Please find me one person with any knowledge of the inner working of the UFC who believes Dana is the 'travelling and media ******'. He is very much the hands-on head of the company. Lorenzo is indeed more important than often given credit for but don't go the opposite extreme and downplay the contribution Dana's made as the creative force behind the promotion. And LOL at the idea Japan doesn't have pro-wrestling. As has been said a million times in Japan MMA and Pro-Wrestling were far more closely integrated than has ever been the case in America.
I agree, thus their problem. They owe much of their success to Dana, and much of the rest to chance happenings in finding the right fighters who panned out. I could very well be wrong about Dana. But to me the UFC seems to grown in spite of him at this point, not because of him. He was essential for a certain faze of the development of the UFC and the sport of MMA in this country. I see him being a bigger hindrance than a help at this point. Again I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
I was merely suggesting a way those guys could interpret him to make him less bother. As already stated, I'm a fan of Dana's.
The culture is different, Japanese are different. I don't watch The UFC for Dana White, and I don't care who else watches. That's not my job, just a fight fan. He is part of a great production, it shouldn't bother you out there.
Judging by the 25 minute interview I watched of him today the man has no spare time He's literally off a plane, work, back on plane, work, get off plane, work, back on plane ad infinitum. And although Silva and Shelby are the matchmakers he's still involved in that side as well.
If he's such a negative then why did FOX ask for him to be a pundit for the first broadcast? Why do sponsors ask for him to appear in adverts? Again there seems to be thing of "well Dana's not like commissioners in othing sports so he must be bad" but there's no real evidence that he's done anything to damage the sport. The nearest you get is the scandal over him calling Josh Gross a ***, which was very damaging, but he corrected his behaviour to make sure it never happened again. If there is a problem with Dana its overwork - the guy is literally all over the world and that's got to be effecting his ability to focus on improving the product. And this 'right fighters at the right time' is silly. Its the old cliche of needing to work really hard to make something look effortless. A great example is Cain Velasquez. Cain is literally a dull as grey dog**** but the UFC did such a great job marketing him that he became this Mexican hero who for the JDS was a legit ratings draw with hispanics (particularly through FOX Desportes). Ditto Anderson Silva - the UFC fought for years to get him in the Octagon, then gave him the fight against Griffin that made him a superstar in America and then made the fight with Belfort that put him over huge in Brazil. Even someone like Chuck Liddell had his superstardom massively enhanced by decisions Dana made - such as (for example) bringing Ken Shamrock back to feed to Tito Ortiz rather than rushing to make Liddell-Ortiz in 2006. To me Dana is the individual that since 2001 has made the biggest contribution to the success of the UFC today. It wasn't all him by any means but you take him out of the equation and the thing wouldn't have worked.
You might be right, but I have trouble seeing it. Fox would ask him because he is the face of the UFC. But beyond that, who knows man. Maybe he just rubs me the wrong way so badly that I can't see him in a positive light no matter how hard I try.
I agree with that post wholeheartedly Will. He and the Fertitta's have certainly got their **** together.
If you had pride rules with the cage instead of the ring, then that would be the perfect MMA model for me. Especially the judging philiosophy and carding system.
Like you the overwork thing is the one that worries me. His temper seems to be getting shorter as he gets more irritable and overworked. As King Mo found out to his cost.
Two things. On the first point I think you're confusing what Dana set out to do with what you would like him to do. I don't think Dana's ever been a fan of inter-weight class superfights - he's always came across as somebody very much into weight classes and protecting championships. Likewise I don't think Dana ever set out to pay fighters 'x' percentage of the proceeds and has always been much more focus on investing that money back into the business. Secondly on the Pride FC heavyweight division. To me the Pride heavyweights are like the boxing heavyweights of the 70s, in that it was the point just before the heavyweight division became overly obsessed with size and power. Nowadays heavyweights have such power that one punch can end it or they have so much size that many suffocate the fights through wrestling. There were big fighters back then (Sapp for one) but they lacked the technical skill to consistently dominant smaller opponents. This not only made for more varied fights but also ones that actually went long enough to get interesting. This was as much true of the UFC division as the Pride on - while the UFC division is the strongest its ever been they've yet to have a fight anywhere close to the entertainment level of say Couture-Rizzo 1 and 2.