The head of the organization announced this at a press conference for the UFC Fight Night 217 tournament, appearing in public for the first time after the scandalous incident.
“What should be the consequences? You tell me,” White told the assembled reporters. “Go away for thirty days on vacation? How will this punish me? My departure will hurt the company, hurt my employees, and hurt the fighters, but it won’t hurt me. I could have left in 2016. Do you understand what I mean? Do I need to think about it? No, it doesn `t need. When I woke up the next day, I thought it over and said that I was wrong. I’ve always been against it.”
“Look, we had a lot of discussions with Ari Emanuel, with ESPN, and no one is happy with this situation. Including me. But it happened and I have to deal with it. What will be my punishment? Here’s my punishment: I’ll have to live with it for the next 25 years, or as long as I live, and this stain will be with me forever. My other punishment is that many people, be it the media, fighters, friends, acquaintances, who respected me, may stop respecting me.
Some fighters of the organization managed to speak out in defense of Dan White, pointing out that his wife hit him first, however, the UFC president does not approve of this and believes that the blame for what happened lies entirely with him.
“It only has one side. There is no reason or excuse for what happened on New Year’s Day, period. I’m 53, going to be 54 this summer, and I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in my life except my sister when we were little kids trying to kill each other. This is the first time this has happened and I guarantee you it will never happen again. Nobody has to protect me. There are no two sides to this story – there is only my side.
Last week, TMZ posted a mobile phone camera video showing the wife of the UFC president slapping him in a nightclub, and he hit her back several times before they were separated.
Following the release of the video, Dana White and Anna White made public statements saying that excessive drinking was the cause of the conflict and that they apologized to each other. However, the very next day, the shares of Endeavor, which owns the UFC, lost 6% in price, which, given the total value of the company’s assets, amounts to losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.