Yahoo: White suggests Strikeforce is sticking it to Shields, UFC will take him

Clark Kent

<B>News Bot</B>
Joined
Sep 11, 2006
Messages
7,128
Reaction score
6
03-22-2010 04:35 AM:

Just when you think the war has calmed down, Dana White fires off another missile at his favorite guys from Strikeforce/Showtime. During the postfight for UFC on Versus 1, White told the media that he was just toying with Showtime/CBS and playing games with Strikeforce when rumors emerged that his promotion was going to counterprogram the Dan Henderson-Jake Shields card with a card of its own the same night in the same city!

White claims there was no truth to the rumors of an Ultimate Fight Night in Nashville. He simply allowed the media to run with it. It's funny though, Mike Swick reported that he was offered a fight for that date against Matt Serra. White also confirmed to Yahoo! Sports' Dave Meltzer that he was considering a card that night. Gamesmanship aside, White admits it's all driven by his hatred for Showtime and one executive in particular. Then he tore into the April 17 CBS card calling the main event a joke.

""Dan Henderson is fighting [expletive] Jake Shields," White told the media. "Come on. Are you serious? Jake Shields is 170 pounds, and he's their (185-pound) champion?"

White claims Showtime is employing dirty tactics.

"Jake Shields is on the last fight of his contract, so they're feeding him to Dan Henderson right now because they want to get rid of him because he's going to go away, or they're going to have to pay him some big money to stick around or whatever the deal is," said White. "'We're paying more money to Dan Henderson than we can afford already, so let's get Jake's *** kicked by Dan Henderson and get rid of Jake Shields.'"

White said it's why Showtime has a bad reputation amongst some in the fight business.

"It's such [expletive] bush-league [expletive], and you guys know it. They're a [expletive] joke," said White. "Showtime's always been a joke with all their sports programming, and this is no different."

White is rooting for Shields to win but if he doesn't he's still interested in grabbing the 30-year-old for his welteweight division.

"If Jake Shields could pull that off, that would be incredible, and good for him," White said. "He's going to get paid because what's going to happen is we would love to take him from there, and I'm sure they'd love him to stick around."

Either way, White feels his wins.

"I will help drive that [expletive] number right up through the roof and let the Showtime boys pay him a lot of money so that Jake can stick it right up their ***. 'I just choked out Dan Henderson, and now you [expletives] are going to pay me for trying to stick it up my ***. I'm going to stick it up yours.'"

When asked about Fedor Emelianenko and his absence from the next two Strikeforce cards, White got tight-lipped.



More...
Yahoo! Sports.
Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.
 

Latest Discussions

Top