Dana White has an incredibly tough job, no question there. He runs the largest MMA organization in the world with hundreds of fighters under contract that he has to manage. He generally puts out an incredible product that fans can be proud of and generally plays the role of straight talkin’ everyman when dealing with the media and fans. Of course there are only so many truths a man in his position can tell before the cold hard reality of misinformation begins to rear its ugly head.
This was an odd week for White because this was one of those weeks when a statement he made caused a firestorm and then went ahead and had to modify it 24 hours later. It made him look like somebody who is susceptible to speaking without thinking, something he’s been accused of in the past, as well as bending to the cries of those in the bleachers. But to those of us who have paid attention we know that simply isn’t true. It begs a question or two. Mainly it came down to “why the blunder?”
And why allow misinformation to seep in when it totally wasn’t necessary? It has everything to do with the nature of the Light Heavyweight division and what it takes to crown a #1 contender in the early days of what will most likely be called the “Jon Jones Era.”
On Monday White stated that the winner of Shogun Rua and Brandon Vera would be given a title shot during the UFC on Fox 4 pre-fight media call. He continued to sing the praises of Rua while also admitting that perhaps Vera had wandered into a fairly lucky situation. Once word spread of this news the backlash began: White did a good job of articulating former UFC light heavyweight champion and Pride star Rua’s accomplishments.
Sadly the same cannot be said for Vera. He’s lost 3 out of his last four fights, with the fight against Thiago Silva technically changed to a no-contest due to a failed drug test. He is only still in the UFC because of that falsified urine sample and he is only in this fight because that same Silva fell out of a UFC 149 fight against Shogun; Shogun passed on upstart Glover Teixeira, who is now scheduled against Quinton Jackson in Teixeira’s native Brazil. Dana took it all back and said whoever looked the best in the Shogun/Vera AND Lyoto Machida/Ryan Bader match would get the next shot at Jon Jones.
With Dan Henderson scheduled for the near future, the challengers afterwards (provided he defeats Henderson) aren’t as promising because of glaring deficiencies or the feeling that they’re not quite ready to take that next step up. Chances are that after Saturday Rua and Machida will emerge as the winners and while a final piece to their trilogy feels appropriate, throwing in a coaching stint on the second season of “TUF: Brazil” to make it a “can’t miss” fight on a card later in Rio, finding Jones somebody credible to defeat means that one of these gentlemen is going to get a rematch much sooner they ought to.
Such is the state of the light heavyweight division.
