When Dana White isn’t busy calling female reporters “fucking dumb bitches” or those reporters’ sources “fucking faggots,” the UFC president spends his time whitewashing his fighters’ domestic violence histories. There’s Thiago Silva, arrested on charges he put a gun in his wife’s mouth, threatened to kill her, and forced a SWAT team to take him down; White falsely claimed the fighter had been “acquitted” after charges were dropped due to Silva’s wife mysteriously disappearing. UFC fighter Abel Trujillo has twice pleaded guilty to committing domestic violence against the mother of his children; he was scheduled to appear in last month’s UFC 186 until suffering a broken arm.
This despite Dana White insisting that “You don’t bounce back from putting your hands on a woman.”
Now White is lying again. Anthony “Rumble” Johnson is taking on Daniel Cormier this weekend at UFC 187 with the light-heavyweight title on the line. Johnson was convicted of domestic violence in 2010; he pleaded no contest to putting his girlfriend in a headlock and dragging her up the stairs. The mother of two of Johnson’s children says he knocked out two of her teeth in 2012, and last year Johnson was served with a restraining order after another incident.
Dana White’s response? “Anthony Johnson was actually the one who was being terrorized in this relationship.”
That’s what White told TSN’s Off The Record last week. White also claimed full ignorance of Johnson’s 2010 conviction, despite Johnson being a UFC fighter at the time and the alleged zero-tolerance domestic violence policy having existed at the company “since day one.” The problem with White claiming the company “doesn’t know exactly what happened to him then”? Both White and UFC owner Lorenzo Fertita told ESPN last year that they did know about the charge that led to Johnson’s 2010 conviction.
This situation is best laid out over at Women’s MMA:
So let’s recap the official UFC line about Anthony Johnson:
- crazy woman terrorizes, says horrible things
- court proves crazy woman lied
- also it’s not true because private investigation
- 2010 conviction, ??? idk
The UFC isn’t alone in its inconsistent and often hypocritical approach to athletes who commit domestic violence. Still, by attempting to have it both ways, Dana White is reminding everyone of something they should already know: never believe a word that comes out of his mouth.
Photo credit: AP
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