Dana White has insisted that he didn’t even know Jake Paul was putting his next fight head-to-head with UFC 317 – or that he was working with one of his greatest rivals.
Paul has teamed up with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions to deliver his upcoming bout with former world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. The fight takes place at Anaheim’s Honda Center, and features Golden Boy’s cruiserweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez in the co-main event.
Going head-to-head with Paul is the main event of International Fight Week; UFC 317 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The world title double-header sees Ilia Topuria face Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight title which Alexandre Pantoja defends his flyweight belt against Kai Kara-France.
Dana White claims he didn’t know Jake Paul’s next fight clashed with UFC 317
Despite the fact that both events are likely to take audience share from one another in the ever-dwindling pay-per-view market, Dana White doesn’t seem too concerned about Jake Paul’s upcoming fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr going head-to-head with his big Las Vegas showcase.
International Fight Week is often called the UFC’s ‘Super Bowl’, with a string of events preceding the big show on Saturday. But there appears to be a real buzz building around Paul and his bout with former middleweight world champion Chavez Jr.
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But speaking with Bloody Elbow, White didn’t seem too interested, claiming not to know the fight was on and even asking who Paul’s opponent will be. “I didn’t even f—ing know that,” he said. “I didn’t even know he was fighting so that’s how concerned I am about it.”
Asked if he felt it was a ‘proper fight’ for Paul, who is often critiqued for his level of opponent, White replied that it was an “interesting” contest and repeated “I didn’t even know that.”
When Bloody Elbow made him aware that De La Hoya was involved in the promotion, he replied “No f—ing way,” before branding the event a “S— show”.
Dana White shreds Oscar De La Hoya after false claim about Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford
The feud between White and De La Hoya has been brewing for years, with the boxing legend even once making the move into MMA to promote a show. It still rages on to this day, with the former taking shots at the latter any chance he gets.
De La Hoya has recently claimed that the Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford fight will happen during the day of September 13 on Netflix. This would be so as to avoid a clash with the Noche UFC event in Texas that night, although White insists this is false information.
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“How the f— would he know that?” White asked when the idea was put to him. “It’s not true. So you’re saying that when we were talking about getting into it and that some people would [be upset], does De La Hoya count? I mean, come on.
“It’s not that there’s any rivalry, De La Hoya is just a douche bag, there’s a big difference between that and rivalry… Some of these guys I have great relationships with and then there’s the f—ing lunatics like De La Hoya and [Bob] Arum and guys like that.
“Listen, we’re going to do what we do, we’re going to move forward and we pretty much do everything that we say we’re going to do, we get it done. I’m not looking at anybody as a rival or we’re going to take this guy out or any of that, people in the boxing business don’t work too well.”