Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament: 10 Most Memorable Dana White Twitter Moments
Dana White is unquestionably the most outspoken president in all of professional sports. So, mixing White with social media outlets like Twitter is bound to cause chaos.
Following Fedor Emelianenko's loss to Antonio Silva in the quarterfinal round of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament, White began what could possibly be classified as his most notable Twitter outburst ever.
I won't spoil his tweets for you just yet because this most recent Twitter moment easily made the list for White's 10 most memorable ever.
10. White Reacts To Strikeforce: Houston
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In former professional wrestler Bobby Lashley, Strikeforce had a possible answer to the UFC's Brock Lesnar. Lashley had the potential to draw interest from massive amounts of casual MMA fans if he could become a successful fighter.
Muhammed Lawal was an ideal light heavwyeight champion for Strikeforce. Lawal was outspoken and entertaining, which are obviously excellent assets for a champion to have in terms of promoting their fights.
Unfortunately for Strikeforce, Lashley and Lawal both lost at Strikeforce: Houston in August 2010.
For someone who has said he doesn't see Strikeforce as competition, Dana White seemed surprisingly amused when he responded to a fan's tweet:
"It's karma coming back on sh*ttime sports."
9. White Accidentally Tweets His Phone Number
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Dana White is a very busy guy, or so he has said, so he probably was kicking himself when he received numerous phone calls from strangers after accidentally tweeting his phone number.
After realizing his mistake, White tweeted:
"I f**ked up and tweeted my number lol but I got to talk to a lot of cool people. Thank u all!!!"
Don't bother looking up this tweet for your prank calling pleasure, though. White has since changed his phone number.
8. White Reaches One Million Followers
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At first, this might not really seem like that big of an accomplishment, but it is truly a tribute to Dana White's popularity.
Out of all of the celebrities and personalities that use Twitter, White was one of the first 250 people to achieve one million followers.
Currently at more than 1.3 million followers, White is not far behind Twitter mogul Chad Ochocinco. Furthermore, White has half a million more followers than Terrell Owens.
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7. White Bashes Howard Stern
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From time to time, Dana White even posts tweets that are completely unrelated to MMA. Take this gem for an example:
"Opie and Anthony in an hour. F*ck Stern. O&A are WAY better than Stern."
Opie and Anthony took notice of this tweet and invited White onto their show. On the show, White said that Stern had asked to have the UFC's ring girls on his show, but White had declined because he was not a fan of Stern's show.
6. White Flips Out on Cage Potato's Ben Goldstein
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This Twitter moment actually took place offline, but was a direct result of an Arianny Celeste show of displeasure on Twitter.
Cage Potato, an MMA website, had leaked photographs from Celeste's photo shoot with Playboy. When Celeste found out, she voiced her anger through Twitter. Cage Potato later removed the photographs from their Web site, but that did not put an end to the situation.
Cage Potato founder Ben Goldstein said that Dana White contacted him by phone after the matter had been resolved. According to Goldstein, White said, "What kind of scumbag are you? I'm going to f**k you up worse than you've ever been f**ked before."
5. White Gives Fans the Fights They Want To See
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This Twitter moment may seem relatively minor right now, but it could turn out to be one of the most influential of them all.
On multiple occasions, Dana White's Twitter followers have influenced the UFC's decision on which fights to air live. Recently, the fans pleas for two fights to be aired live have been heard by White.
A UFC 125 fight between Phil Baroni and Brad Tavares, which was not originally scheduled to be aired, was made available live on Ion TV.
Additionally, a UFC 126 fight between Demetrious Johnson and Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto had not been originally slotted as a fight that would take place during Spike TV's broadcast of the preliminary card. When the fans voiced their displeasure, White decided to make the fight available on a live Facebook stream.
If these additional live-aired fights become successful, it is conceivable that fans could be allowed to choose more preliminary card fights to be aired in the future.
4. Fedor Emelianenko Loses to Fabricio Werdum
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This tweet was a simple one, but it cetainly got the point across.
Fedor Emelianenko was Strikeforce's most coveted fighter on their roster. Emelianenko was a fighter that Dana White had wished to bring into the UFC for quite some time. However, White and Emelianenko's management were never able to come to an agreement.
The semicolon, space and capital "d" that White tweeted following Emeianenko's loss to Fabricio Werdum expressed his joy for the disappointment that the upset caused Strikeforce and Emelianenko's management.
3. Fedor Emelianenko Loses To Antonio Silva
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Apparently, Dana White enjoys when Fedor Emelianenko loses. After Emelianenko lost to Antonio Silva in the quartefinal round of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, Dana White unloaded on Twitter:
"All the Fedor nut huggers were so excited for (tonight's) set up fight. Didn't work out and they are BUMMED!!!"
"M1 = M done! What did I tell you Vadummy!!"
"He was INCREDIBLY mismanaged!! Worst management in fight history"
Clearly, Dana White's primary target in this series of tweets was M-1 Global president Vadim Finkelstein, who White blames for Emelianenko not signing with the UFC. While some may detect a hint of jealousy at the fact that Emelianenko will probably never fight in the UFC, it is clear that these tweets are more of a sign of White's satisfaction at the expense of Emelianenko's failure.
2. White Blames ESPN for Spoiling UFC 120 Results
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This was probably not one of Dana White's brighter moments. If the UFC hopes to become a major sports organization that is accepted by the mainstream, then it needs ESPN on its side.
After fans let him hear about their annoyance with ESPN reporting the results of UFC 120 before the delayed broadcast was shown in the United States, White blamed ESPN.
Since ESPN's MMA Live continues to go on as a program that primarily focuses on the UFC, it appears that White avoided burning any bridges with the sports media giant. White might not be so lucky next time, though.
1. Fans Convince White To Call Off Lesnar vs. Mir III
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After Brock Lesnar lost his UFC heavyweight championship to Cain Velasquez, Dana White said that a third matchup between Lesnar and Frank Mir was likely. Immediately, fans began bombarding White's Twitter with reasons why the fight shouldn't happen.
Ultimately, White listened and decided against the fight. Mir is now expected to fight Roy Nelson at UFC 130 in May of 2011. Meanwhile, Lesnar has begun taping for The Ultimate Fighter: Season 13, after which he will fight Junior Dos Santos to determine the number one contender in the heavyweight division.
Sean Smith has slightly less than one million followers on Twitter. You can help Sean catch up to Dana White by following him on Twitter @BR_Sean_Smith.
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