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Documents from the antitrust lawsuit against Zuffa have previously shown Dana White and UFC owners celebrating “cut throat” and “nasty” moves they made against fighters. Bloody Elbow has since uncovered more text exchanges between these executives, showing White trashing and cursing out key UFC stars during negotiations.
Dana White tells Lorenzo Fertitta to ‘bury’ Mark Hunt
Among the documents that John S. Nash and Bloody Elbow have obtained from the antitrust lawsuit, were text messages and depositions involving UFC President and now CEO Dana White. Texts from August 2014 show former UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta telling White that they haven’t resolved their contract dispute.
In response, White writes “Okay. Yeah. He’s a f—head,” and asks Fertitta to “bury that f—er.”
During his deposition, White tries to explain that line just “means sue him.”
Hunt, the former heavyweight title challenger, would eventually be involved in various lawsuits with the UFC. It’s worth pointing out that the fighter was the one who initiated those proceedings, and it would only happen years after this exchange.
The dates of the texts align from the time Hunt’s past contract dispute, where he notably tweeted about suddenly being “unemployed,” before eventually retracting his statement.
Dana White says UFC doesn’t need ‘scumbag’ Jon Jones
Previous leaked texts showed how Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta played their Good Cop – Bad Cop routine in UFC negotiations, and it seems no different when it came to their biggest stars like Jon Jones.
On April 27, 2014, negotiations between Jones and UFC became public with Dana White announcing a rematch with Alexander Gustafsson before the fight had even been finalized. Jones wanted to fight Daniel Cormier instead, and the announcement could be seen as one of the UFC’s ways to pressure their fighters into accepting the fight.
Text messages from May 29, 2014, showed White and Fertitta talking about Jones, as the fight still hasn’t been signed.
“What’s up with Jones? Did he straighten up or is he still being a scumbag?” White asked Fertitta.
“Still a douche, but we’re inching closer,” Fertitta texts back. “Haven’t moved on money, but sent the letter with an ultimatum.”
“Awesome. F— that punk, Lorenzo,” White responds. “He needs to know we don’t need him or he will f— us over more than he already does.”
Update: UFC implemented strategy to extend Jon Jones’ contract
Email exchanges revealed from the UFC antitrust lawsuit also provided added context on this specific scenario, showing how when White and Fertitta were upset at Jon Jones, the promotion intentionally sent him a formal offer knowing he’d turn it down. This strategy would take advantage of the UFC’s controversial tolling provisions, which meant they can keep extending Jon Jones’ contract.
“We need to send him a letter formally offering the Gustafson (sic) fight and giving him a specific deadline to accept or reject. When he says no we need to extend him,” Lawrence Epstein wrote in an email.
The emails can be read below, which were sent on the same date as White and Fertitta’s texts above.
Did Dana White lie under oath trying to explain texts about Jon Jones?
The UFC head was asked about these text messages during his deposition for the antitrust lawsuit. Despite timelines and context looking to be about negotiations that even spilled out publicly at the time, Dana White claimed under oath that it wasn’t about being a “scumbag in negotiations.” It was supposedly just about Jon Jones’ personal life.
Here’s how the deposition went:
Question: Okay. So you wanted Mr. Fertitta to let Mr. Jones know that the UFC didn’t need him?
Dana White: …
Read the rest of the post over at our Substack page
In the full post, we go over Dana White’s curious response on the deposition, along with Jon Jones’ UFC payouts, contract status, and response to the UFC CEO’s controversial texts.
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