Unfortunately for the head of the strongest league in the world, the nightclub incident was caught on video and was at the disposal of the ubiquitous resource TMZ, which specializes in such situations.
The released video shows White approaching his wife Anna, who is clearly upset about something, and gets slapped by her, then hits her back several times before they are separated.
After the video was published, the UFC president had to give public explanations on this matter.
“I’m in Cabo, Mexico, spending holidays with my wife and family, and unfortunately this is what happened,” White told TMZ. “You know I’m one of those guys who’s been saying for years that a guy raising his hand to a woman can’t have any excuses. And now I’m on TMZ talking about it. My wife and I have been married for almost 30 years and have known each other since we were 12. Obviously we’ve been through all sorts of shit together and we have three kids and it’s just a terrible situation.”
“I am ashamed, but now we are more worried about our children. We have three of them, and obviously, as soon as the video came out, we showed it to the children and now we are more focused on our family. People have an opinion about this, and in most cases it will be correct, especially about me – in no case should you raise a hand against a woman. My wife and I love each other and we have been together for a very long time. We’ve known each other since we were very young, and this is one of the unfortunate situations in our life.”
“We definitely drank a lot, but that’s no excuse. I don’t make excuses about this at all. This has never happened before. It happened for the first time, no matter what people say. I deserve all the words spoken to me. I don’t know what happened and my wife and I apologized to each other and to our children. We are not too concerned about what people say – we are more concerned about our children and taking care of our family.”
The wife of the UFC president, Anna White, also made a statement on the matter, stating that domestic violence is not a common practice.
“We have been married for almost thirty years,” the woman said. “To say that this is not typical for him is to say nothing. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Unfortunately, we both drank a lot on New Year’s Eve and things got out of hand, on both sides. We discussed it with the family and apologized to each other. I hope people will respect our privacy for the sake of our children.”