Dana White Reacts to Alex Pereira's Callout of Dricus Du Plessis, Confident Sphere Card Meets Hype

what a night huh that's some fun [ __ ] I love I love this love it love it love it what a great night yeah it was good I mean I was going to start right there right I mean obviously anytime you give five contracts that's a good indication but then also like three big underdogs hit as well so overall thoughts this has to be like one of I don't know felt like one of the more exciting nights we've ever had here yeah I I mean it's tough to say the what night is the most exciting night out of however many seasons we've done it I think I think was last season or the season before the first episode was brutal I mean just [ __ ] terrible other than that I mean every single fight every season on this show is off the charts and and it's based on the premise of the show we don't care what you've done before you came here what are you going to do tonight and and and it's like they always show up and deliver it's it's unbelievable it's funny because you always talk about how good the matchmaking is right and so coming into tonight we were almost looking at the betting odds being like well was this bad matchmaking the they're these huge you know underdogs so when you see a card like tonight and odds like tonight do you start thinking are we in for some lopsided fights or or what's your thoughts when you well I mean if you go through I I'll give you an example if you if you take the last fight of the night right you got you got this kid eigor who was almost a 5 to one favorite but you know he he I don't I I'm not trying to [ __ ] on anybody I don't even know what the IFL is right but he's spiting he's a big fish in a small pond and you've destroyed everybody you're undefeated deated you're 9 and0 you have a 100% first round finish rate 100% in the first round right and uh 7even wins in under a minute 20 or less so then you come in here and you get you know lined up with this crafty Korean dude who has great head movement and awesome counter punching and wants it just as bad or we saw tonight worse than you do you know and and tonight as I watched that fight play out I saw or start to think maybe this isn't for me maybe this isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life that's what it looked like to me you know um he didn't prepare right or you know never never did he start trying to get out from underneath he didn't try to wall walk up the cage and get up and and have the desperation of I need to finish this fight to win this fight none of that happen so you just lay there and and and let you know your opportunity go by or you come out like some these underdogs right how [ __ ] dare you make me a 13 to1 Underdog how dare you make me a 4 to1 Underdog and that's how you fight talking about Unis I mean you you gave her the contract before she even got out of the cage you brought her back there first but I mean uh you're talking about an upset of the year you're talking about a knockout of the year uh in the the biggest upset in the history of of the contender series you know what I mean um Mick was telling us that he was going through his text chain with her her people she almost didn't come she has no money she doesn't have a dollar to her name right now and uh people were you know she gets per DM what happened to her per DM her pum got messed up and all this stuff so the staff had to go grocery shopping for her and then she comes in and does that I mean [ __ ] let me tell you what she ain't broke now was funny right cuz you you st like I don't even know what else you can do I don't know if you can grapple I don't know if you can defend a take down I don't know what you can do but we're going to let you in and and try it whatever you can do I mean you you don't see women knock women out like that and the girl she fought was a 13 to1 favorite the girl's a beast a specimen she came out and just started letting her hands fly she knocked her out in a minute 13 but after that first big exchange they had where she was hitting her with the shots and then it was sort of a lull and they were staring at each other she already had a hematoma above her eye and I mean damn it it was a I if you can't tell I got kind of caught up in in that whole moment but the whole place did I mean very very rare that the that the entire Place erupts here for the contender like it did tonight I mean that was that was incredible that was special what we saw tonight that was fun I think that stole the show for the whole night for sure but it was funny because the first fight of the night you're going into the cage you don't do that a whole lot right yeah well that that was the other thing both of those kids were 24 years old and you know my thing was however the judges just score this fight however this plays out both of you have a bright future in this sport both durable tough guys well-rounded no matter where the fight went head kicks eating nasty head kicks the body shots that both of those two took the punches I mean when when they hit each other with some of those right hands it sounded like heavyweights it reminded me of the night that Francis and Stipe fought in here when Francis and Stipe were hitting each other that night and you were just like godamn right those two were throwing those kind of punches at each other was it was a great fight so I don't know that we've seen you this excited about a night in a long time so I guess what's the overall message because still quite a bit of season left right so what would you tell the rest of the competitors that they can do if you don't know by now I don't know what to tell you I mean uh like I say this this is your opportunity when after the after the um after the girls knockout we were trending number two uh in the United States and you know I don't even have to know but I know that's going to be top 10 tonight on ESPN's top 10 you know what I mean nobody knows you on Tuesday morning everybody can know you Wednesday morning you know what I mean this is your shot and your opportunity to come in and show me but show the whole world who you are and it doesn't matter what the odds are that's been proven a million times it's about who you are who are you show us right here tonight well done uh all right listen I we got a great fight card this weekend I don't want to look past that but the sphere is coming very very close I just want to get an update on that where do you stand in terms of preparation and I mean that's obv a huge event how much is left to do between now and next week it's all the work is done now it's about rehearse rehearse rehearse rehearse um and there's limited times that we can get we're getting in there at like 1: till 7:00 in the morning because of their schedule but but it's all about rehearsing now and to try to explain to you how complex this show is and how many moving pieces and parts there are to pulling this thing off it's all about all the all the bells and whistles are done now it's about execution you know you made big promises obviously what this show is going to be how confident are you going to be able to deliver on those promises with this being the greatest sporting event of all time I'm I'm I'm extremely confident um you know i' I've sat in there and I've looked at the stuff already and we look so I don't know if I told you guys this last time I talked to you but we walked into the sphere and you know I ain't going to lie you know there's a lot of pressure on me and I'm thinking about all these different things that how's this is this right we sat down and they made they made a mistake when they started doing the uh rehearsal and they played me like one of the middle pieces of the show I literally looked at Craig borar and said yeah you know [ __ ] it you didn't have to show me anything else I can get up and go right now I'm I'm good it's badass it's badass it's going to be awesome just about execution now last thing I have for you uh I don't know how long we need to talk about it but couldn't help but notice the Jon Jones promo that ran tonight uh what yeah yeah it was it it had a lot of things calling him the goat talking about his accomplishments and now is that something you've been planning for a long time that just happened to roll out this week or was that a direct response to anything that happened here last week I was in the back I didn't even see it air I didn't even know they aired that there a lot of stats about him who he's beating I don't know did you guys read him there's a lot of stuff did you guys read the stats it didn't talk a lot about the guys recently that he's Beat It talked about his whole career right still well you recently just beat the heavyweight the number one heavyweight in the world uh yeah hope you guys read that stat you know what you know what you know what is [ __ ] great about technology we're not far away from AI actually doing these rankings and uh it'll be a great [ __ ] day when AI starts doing this [ __ ] so I'm really excited about that Dana um you're a Gambling Man do you think that the contender series you should probably just not bother with parlays and maybe just look at the fights individually because I feel like anytime you run a parlay on this show it gets ruined by well anytime you have a parlay in any sport I mean parlays are are dangerous that's why everybody does them everybody does them because the the the reward is so good you can't help yourself not if you bet on all the favorites tonight you got like $3 for for like a $10 bet and then fav lost any well that's that's the way it goes goes too if you bet favorite anyway if you do parlays if you bet favorites I mean yeah if you bet the the the big favorites and everything but you can still like tonight I mean same thing sports betting is [ __ ] brutal I don't do it I stopped doing it a long time ago it drives me yeah but it's more fun if you bet no it's not more fun it actually makes the game miserable um and uh but yeah if you like sports betting this is one that actually where're underdogs really do win you talk about wanting see you know we speak about guys coming out and showing you what they're about even if they're the underdog do you then look on the flip side right you maybe had Eagle perhaps will they come out and they see much more tentative do you think that's because the moment's getting to them or do you think you need to come in here with a different strategy if that's your usual fighting style you need to come out here and be aggressive from the opening BT yeah listen if you're if you're undefeated 9 and0 and have seven finishes seven finishes uh in under a minute 20 of the first round and 100% finish rate in the first round that's exactly how you should fight yeah going back to the sphere you said it cost $20 million right can you tell me is it going to be like let's say you did it again it's another 20 million or because you're the first people that are doing this that's why it's so high and if you were ever to do it again you could get those costs down a little bit yeah no I don't think you can uh I think that you know obviously the technology of the sphere is uh is is is all new so so you have to shoot in a different format than you normally do and and you know the thing is with us is we don't cut Corners we don't cut Corners we do everything the right way so if you think about that our production value is usually here right compared to even HBO boxing which you know they were the gold standard but the only thing they did differently in 30 years was HD was all the same [ __ ] right you know I would take us from here to the ceiling on what we're doing to the sphere um I told you guys before I believe that this is a game Cher this is where sports and entertainment Truly Come Together and I think what you'll start to see is some of these Arenas start to change the way they you know a lot of these places are being built right now uh new Arenas a lot of them are being refurbished and redone because they're old I think you'll start to see them start to add better technology to the Arenas where you go to the you know the the Lakers game and you got a guy juggling and you know the mascots dunking balls at halftime and stuff like that I think you'll start to see more entertainment based stuff happening in halftime is there stuff you guys can take from the sphere that you can then use oh we will we already have I mean some of the some of the cameras and some of the technology we're using for this we will absolutely spill over into the you know the events moving forward great last one for me uh your partner turkey ales Shake said today that he wants to make boxing pay-per-views like $20 he thinks that's a good way to combat piracy I'm not asking you to change your Pay-Per-View price but as someone who knows the numbers is that a valid way to combat piracy or do you think you need to focus on punishing after the fact trust me me we know exactly how to combat piracy you you know we I won't tell you extensively what we do every every event but but we go after piracy hard and you saw a few years ago we started Prosecuting people that's how you combat piracy start [ __ ] Prosecuting people for stealing there you go Dan Dana to your right yep how many people on the roster now like you've given 13 out of 15 winners contracts this week it seems like your roster you are you at 700 now what's the number you know what under 700 is that a a workable number for you to get you know or is there going to be some pairing going on at the bottom of the roster yeah I think that you know every every time you get into a cycle there's cuts that you have to make you have to make a certain amount of cuts at a at a certain point in time but the reason we can pull off a lot of the things that we do is because we have such a deep roster you know we you know this year we had eay come off the couch and basically come from home watching the pay-per-view at home to come fight when you have a deep roster you can do stuff like that you can could pull fights out four days five days before and you know I I was thinking tonight when you were doing this is it about strengthening the bottom of the roster and then seeing where they go or is it just looking and saying I want to see guys that can be top 10 top five potentially Champions is there one way that you look at it more than the other my goal every every day when I go to work is I want to find the absolute best fighters in the world I want to put on the best production that we can inhouse and on live television every Saturday that we possibly can and to do that you need shows like the contender series um and you need to find these people bring them in and give them the opportunity when you look at uh um Dubin and and what she did tonight I mean what do you you see in her growth-wise she fought I guess five people all of whom made their Pro debut yeah and so there's basically nothing really to go on looking at her past performance because she hadn't fought anybody here's what I'm going on I'm going on the fact that she was a 13 to one dog tonight the adversity that she had to go through to even get here um the fact that she came out against a girl that she was not supposed to beat who is an absolute physical spe who here thought she was going to win this fight tonight I mean raise your hand so I can call you a liar in front of the whole world uh she comes out tonight and and doesn't surprise me and and uh one of the nastiest Knockouts forget about the contender series you'll see in women's fighting I mean it's and and it was with a punch not a head kick or a knee um she's going to get an opportunity what she does with it we will find out you know hopefully she takes all the money that she made tonight night and and she goes back she gets into a real training camp and gets with a real team and and and she tries to go do something with her life did you give her extra bonus tonight because she okay yes um also want to ask you did you see Alex uh pereira's uh tweet today or Instagram post today I didn't but Len told me about it yeah so what's your take on that so because it's I I wrote a thing and I basically said if if he goes to middleweight forget about him ever fighting at heavyweight right um what is your take on on his he seems to have this kind of unusual interest in middleweight for whatever reason there's a lot of contenders he hasn't fought ankali yet I know anv has a fight but um no I I disagree my take on him is he's [ __ ] nasty that's my take on him he wants to move up he wants to move down he wants to go every that's that's why people love him those are the type of Fighters that people love um you know pray wants to fight everybody I love it so what do you do with a guy like that when you have a guy like that and dricus hey look at the run dricus is on right I mean he's kicked ass and you know one two and three I think he's beaten the rankings and everything so you promis to fight to Strickland um if if dricus comes out of that would you grant uh Alex's wish assuming he beats kaloo I don't know the thing that's great about it is first of all I said a minute ago it's why everybody loves him and he's great but but it also gives us a ton of options that as we're in matchmaking should we do this should we do that shouldn't we do this shouldn't we do that um I don't know it's it's a good problem to have with a guy like him and you know I know how about he's on vacation in Australia and accepts the last minute fight I mean just everything about Alex Pereira is what makes fans absolutely love the guy he is 37 years old that's you know the one when you look at the one negative in terms of if he goes down and and the reason I call it a negative is this if you want to see him try to make history and win a heavyweight title become the first UFC champion to do it in three divisions you're talking at least another year right and at that point you know he's passed 38 you know heading to 39 time becomes an issue there so do you ever have a conversation with him and and sit down and and try to you know kind of map out a little bit say because that that would be so unusual Dana to win title in three weight classes and he's a big man and you put on 10 or 15 pounds of muscle and he's 245 just like Jones yeah no uh listen all these guys are battling time they all battle time um we're just going to have to see you know what happens over the next couple of months there's a lot of fights happening in these weight classes and you know first Stipe and Jones needs to happen uh you know and then uh then we figure out where we go there Aspen is obviously the next guy that should get the next title shot um and we'll see how this this all plays out but they're all battling time every one of them good uh one for me last week we were talking about working together with Riad season in the US but you you kind of didn't want to share the sort of things you might be working on can I have one guess and if I'm close you say yes no but go ahead is it anything to do with TKO boxing cuz turkey alesik wants to create a league which heard he wants to implement in early 2025 do I think that that what I need help lene is isko is TKO is is part turkey alesik wants to create a a league in boxing that he wants to apparently launch early 2025 is that something TKO boxing could help with huh anything is possible anything is possible who knows have a great night Dennis