Big Frano beat the UFC in general, went from 600k a fight to 10 mill + PPV points. Dana in March said he left because he didn't wanna fight high-level guys anymore, Lol.
Dana is a very petty little man. After Georges St-Pierre won the middleweight title against Bisping, he refused to give GSP the fight against Khabib (even though they both wanted it) since Georges refused to take the Whittaker fight. A fight that we all knew that GSP was too small and old to take at that point in his career. He just wanted to see Whittaker mangle him on his way out the door. A GSP-Khabib fight might have been the biggest PPV in the history of the sport even bigger than anything Conor brought in. But he called that off even though he previously agreed to it just to spite Georges. After everything Georges had done for the company, Dana treated him like ****. The funny part is that Khabib ended up quitting MMA soon after that point anyway after his father died. So, Dana blew a huge amount of money and an all-time historic fight just for his personal spite towards a man who always acted with class and dignity.
Dana has a lot of petty personal vendettas, but Ngannou getting beaten easily and KO'd would have made the UFC look bad, even though he isnt a UFC fighter anymore. Ngannou did a great service to the MMA world in general with that performance.
So true you could write long essays on Danas bitterness & hate towards many of the past & present fighters.
Despite being a very greedy man, Dana has been know to let personal grudges interfere with good business sense in the past. And there's nothing Dana hates more than a fighter who knows his worth and is brave enough to stand up to him.
Dana made him an offer he refused, Dana wont work with him again. Both were happy and moved on. Worked out for Frances and I think it worked out best for the UFC. People will always hold it against Dana losing Francis as they do for losing Fedor. But truth is stars like Cyborg and MM that are too good stall a division it is best when divisions are moving and growing. Creating new stars.
I am sure Dana is Dancing and very happy, wouldn't you be he got rid of boring mma Francis Ngannou who barely fought once a year always complaining, now he needs to get Jon Jones fighting but looks like he will be out and Stipe needs to retire all this was looking blue but new blood who wants to fight often Dana loves and new champ Tom Aspinall fits the bill and UK is a powerful source of UFC revenue Francis wasn't.
