For the better part of two decades Dana White has been the Vince MacMahon of combats sports and like MacMahon, rather than just making and promoting the fights, White wanted to get in on the action himself. Footage recently came to light of UFC President Dana White getting physical with his wife. In the video White and his wife appears to be in some sort of disagreement. White’s wife hit him in the face, and White , with no hesitation , proceeded to out the paws on her, striking his wife multiple times.
If you are unfamiliar with this incident , you are not alone, for that was the way it was intended.
When TMZ questioned White about the matter, the tenor of Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere bordered somberness. It was hands-off approach was evident when White gave a meandering non-answer to the rudimentary question of “What happened?”
To say BSPN has handled this situation with kid gloves would putting it very kindly. Steven A. Smith in his monologue about the incident showed a level of morose and contrition that managed to surpass the display he showed when Aaron Rodgers was catching heat over his forthcoming in regards to his vaccination status. Smith let it be known that Dana White is ” a friend and that “he loves the guy.”Smith’s reaction was in stark contrast for the vitriol he had for Kyrie Irving, who merely tweeted a link to a movie, nor did his soliloquy contain the ominous undertone of his response to Kevin Durant.
However Smith had help carrying White’s water, perpetual First Take dead weight, Molly Qerim , whose main contribution has her vapid takes have provided content creators voluminous material to which they can react to, chimed in saying “they talked about drinking heavily. when you’re under the influence, not shaming moments, often people don’t make their best decisions. So in a sense it is I’ve known Dana ..and I have the utmost respect for him and I don’t judge people by their worst moment.”
Molly, that sentiment was certainly was not afforded to Joe Mixon, Deondre Johnson and Ray Rice, all of which were accused of domestic violence. Despite the other party being the initiator, instigator and aggressor, all three were escoriated in the media, especially Rice, whose incident got no shortage of coverage across the media, of both the sports and non-sports segments. As a result of the incident , Ray Rice’s career was ended and many in the media were stomping for Rice to never play another down in the National Football League. There has not been one call for White to step down from his role; far from it, as Dana White has taken hardly a sixty second pause from his duties. It has been business as usual , as he is already on to promoting the UFC’s next card.
Where have the calls been to the UFC’s parent company , Endeavor, and it’s CEO Ari Emmanuel ( who is the brother of Rahm Emmanuel, the former mayor of Chicago who was complicit in the attempted burying of the Laquan McDonald state-sponsored lynching) to send White packing? Emmanuel, who was so verbose when it came to the ravings of Kanye West has not seemed to have suddenly not only to have lost his voice but also his will to to act.
Companies such as Nike, ended their dealings with Kyrie Irving for a retweet, and made statements admonishing Irving and his action, it has not only been radio silence from Endeavor, but also the sponsors of the UFC. CEO Emmanuel had a lot to say regarding Kyrie Irving but when it comes to hisNot a single one has indicated that the continuation of their relationship with the MMA company is contingent on White’s departure. Reebok, the official outfitter of the UFC, has not once been accused of a company that endorses domestic violence due to their company’s ongoing relationship with the UFC.
Organizations who feign concern for women, at least as long as the alleged offender is black, such as the National Organization for Women has been deafening with their silence. Tawana Burke’s silence is par for the course for here, as her stance “if the offender is white, then it alright” , which she elucidated in her tweet that said it was not her job to go after white men. Michelle Beadle has been silent as well.Robin Roberts could not stop talking about Chris Brown but she has been mute on Dana White. Blowhard and ambulance chaser extroidenaire, Gloria Allred, who has never shied away from trying to fabricate a case against a black man, astonishingly has been silent and not offered her services to Mrs. White.
However the silent of the ablove listed meat sacks are in no way cherry-picked isolated incidents, the networks themselves are hoping to sweep this assault under the rug as quickly and quietly as possible. An ESPN writer, Jeff Wagenheim exposed ( though he later attempted to walk that back) that the network gave what was essentially a stand down order from writing anything that was less that glowing on the Dana White assault.
This stance runs counter to the networks stance on Ray Rice, for whom ESPN and many of their talking heads blasted with both barrels from morning until night for weeks. Kyrie Irving certainly was not afforded the kid gloves treatment, as the minions of ESPN revealed in casting aspersions at the brother.
Former ESPN journalist and longtime MMA reporter Ariel Helwani ripped the coverage of the incident, saying this on his The MMA Hour podcast:
“Look at the way it’s been covered. Look, go look! And compare that, by the way, to the way other domestic violence situations have been covered by the mainstream, by them (ESPN)! By people that I respect. But this is what they expect from us. This is what they expect from MMA, from cage-fighting, from the UFC, from Dana White. We are not held to the same standard.”
Helwani continued saying this:
“They talk about all these things, about other owners, about boxing, about promoters, and they always hold the UFC and Dana White to a different standard. Because we’re the fun thing on Saturday night that you do with your friends, that you bet and you gamble, and you eat your pizza and your wings, and you drink your beer, and then you go to the real stuff on Sunday and then Monday and we’re kind of like the vice on the side. So we don’t get the same type of criticism because they don’t actually think that highly of the sport.”
ESPN may give Dana “the Womanbeater” White quarter, but on this platform, we shall not.
