Dana White was embroiled in a scandal of his own making for once.
White was videoed in a volatile altercation with his longtime wife at a night club in Cabo San Lucas in Mexico over the New Year’s Eve.
Dana White slapping his wife up in a night club🤯 pic.twitter.com/CAJXX1kCB7
— Full Combat (@fullcombatoff) January 3, 2023
While many speculated about White’s job security after the incident, given how UFC’s parent company is rather woke seldom any UFC athletes piped in with Derek Brunson even going so far as to say:
“If I post my meme I’m getting fired, start me a gofundme and I’ll do it”
But prior to UFC’s history making sale, they weren’t as libertarian as they’re today.
In 2014, a Florida incident led the promotion to release eavyweight Thiago Silva over altercation with ex-wife.
The UFC has released a statement on their website about its decision to cut Thiago Silva:
“Thiago Silva was released from his UFC contract on Feb. 7 due to his arrest by police in South Florida. The charges against Silva were dropped by the Broward County District Attorney’s office and Silva was re-signed to the UFC earlier this month. Based on new information received today in the form of video and audio evidence, Silva has been terminated from his UFC contract.”
This wasn’t the only time White was vocal about domestic violence.
In the wake of NFL running back Ray Rice assaulting his fiancée in 2014, UFC president Dana White took a strong stance against domestic violence:
“There’s one thing that you never bounce back from and that’s putting your hands on a woman. Been that way in the UFC since we started here. You don’t bounce back from putting your hands on a woman.”
UFC also went on to release Luis Pena in October of 2021 following two arrests related to domestic violence since June.
In a statement provided to ESPN through a spokesperson, the UFC said it is aware of the “disturbing allegations” regarding Pena’s arrest Saturday on two charges of battery and thinks that Pena’s personal and legal issues should be his focus before he competes again.
“At this time, UFC believes Mr. Pena needs to deal with the health and legal issues in front of him, and consequently has informed Mr. Pena’s management that his promotional agreement has been terminated,” the statement read.
“This was a bad case,” UFC president Dana White said on the incident.
“We knew that he had problems before that we were trying to help him with. And this is a pretty nasty one. I don’t know if you guys read the police report, but yeah. This one had to happen.”
White is now dealing with a lot of uncertainty. While UFC has a vitriolic die hard fanbase that caused the reddit discussion on the topic of his altercation to get closed UFC’s streaming partner ESPN might not be as forgiving. After all, they’re owned by Disney.