One of the more interesting aspects of today’s ESPN E:60 piece on Dana White was a series of allegations by Pat Miletich. The Croatian Sensation said that almost anything Dana White ever said to him turned out to be a lie.
That’s a pretty sensational allegation, to be sure.
But what intrigued me even more was the complete lack of follow-through by ESPN on the comment. E:60 is supposed to be the centerpiece of investigative journalism at ESPN, yet they completely ignored one of the most inflammatory comments of the entire investigation.
I’ve contacted several fighters tonight about Miletich’s allegation. If Dana White is a man that cannot be trusted, even by the fighters who entrust their lives to him, then why do we rarely hear people leveling the same kind of allegations against White? If it’s such a big issue, why do the people I’ve contacted refuse to come forward and discuss the subject on the record?
Are these allegations nothing more than a sensationalistic attempt to bash White, or are we talking about a subject with actual substance? Is the fear of reprisal from the single most powerful figure in the industry enough to prevent fighters from talking on the record about the subject? Or are we dealing with nothing more than a group of fighters with a chip on their collective shoulders?
These are all valid questions, and they are questions that I’m going to be seeking the answer to in the coming days. I shouldn’t have to dig for these answers, though; ESPN’s job on this piece was to dig and do, you know, actual investigative journalism. The E:60 team failed to follow through (or at least present the information if they actually did the work), and instead of a hard-hitting, informative piece on one of the more polarizing figures in sports and entertainment, we were left with something much less intriguing.
