Dana White Tastes His Own Medicine

For once, it’s finally nice to see UFC president Dana White get a taste of his own medicine.

For the week leading up to UFC 99, much was named about the “verbal agreement” that Dana White had in place with Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.

For the first time in White’s reign, a bout was agreed to by word-of-mouth alone and not accompanied by pen-and-paper. White insisted he was good friends with Cro Cop and trusted the croatian’s word when he said he was ready to make a run at the UFC’s heavyweight title.

Well, Mirko’s return was extremely brief as Cro Cop revealed he would not be returning to the UFC as he already had a three-fight contract in place with DREAM.

As you can imagine, Dana White was not too happy:

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“Isn’t that a dirty [expletive] thing to do?” White asked rhetorically after being queried about Filipovic’s deal with DREAM. “He [ expletive] me. The first time in the history of the company I do one over the phone. He promised me a three-fight deal and he [ expletive] me.”

“He didn’t keep his word,” White said, who said he’d had a two-hour talk with Filipovic on the day Filipovic texted and asked to be able to return. “He talked about honor and all this other [expletive] and he [ expletive] me.

“He fed me this bull [expletive] about wanting to take a run for the title, and what I think he did was, he went out and did this. He turned down every other [expletive] fighter I offered him, because I needed him to fight Cain. He didn’t just poke Al-Turk; he poked me, too.”

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For a strong businessman as White, not signing a fighter to a contract was an extremely amateurish mistake.

However, I have a feeling the last laugh may be on Mirko. If no official contract was actually signed and since the match took place in Germany and outside the jurisdiction of any US-based athletic commission, I would not be surprised at all if we hear that Zuffa refuses to pay Cro Cop for his victory at UFC 99.