As noted, UFC President Dana White appeared as the guest on the first-ever edition of the brand new “UFC Unfiltered” podcast with his “Dana White: Lookin’ For A Fight” co-star and former UFC Welterweight Champion Matt Serra and comedian Jim Norton.
In addition to a number of noteworthy topics the UFC boss commented on, he reacted to the comments recently made by UFC Welterweight contender Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, who made some head-turning comments about his pay after his dominant performance against Patrick Cote at UFC Fight Night 89. White responded to Cerrone’s stating that, “according to my pay, I don’t mean sh*t to the UFC.” at a UFC post-fight press conference earlier this month.
“Me and Cerrone are as tight as tight can be,” the UFC president said Tuesday on the UFC Unfiltered podcast. “And there’s a lot of personal stuff with me and Cerrone, too, on the positive side. But the kid made over $200,000 on a fight on free TV on the co-main event and the gate was $900,000. How much money does Cerrone expect to make on a co-main event? The kid looked great.”
According to White, who mentioned that he spoke with Cerrone since he made the comments, claimed that “Cowboy” told him that he was “half-joking” when he made the remark.
“This day and age, every fighter on Earth, especially when you look at the money Conor, Ronda, some of these people are making out there, it gets crazy,” White said. “Listen, everybody wants to make a million dollars. Everybody wants to make a million dollars. Some people get there and some people don’t.”
While “Cowboy” is 2-0 since moving up to the 170 pound division, and has won 10 of his last 11 fights, the UFC President claims he is too inconsistent to truly reach that next level.
“You’ve gotta win them all,” White said. “Every one is the most important and you’ve gotta work your way up and you’ve gotta win those big fights. And ‘Cowboy,’ again a kid that I love, hasn’t always taken everything so serious. You can’t be f*ckin’ rock climbing two days before your fight or wakeboarding the day of your fight. … You want to make that serious, big money, you have to get in the right mindset. And the way that he looked the other night against Patrick Cote is the way you have to fight when you fight dos Anjos or Diaz or any of the big guys. When you get to that big fight, you’ve gotta win.”
As the discussion on the topic came to an end, White indicated that Cerrone isn’t far off from being part of “that big fight.”
“I think the thing that’s frustrating, especially for a guy like ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, he has the personality,” White said. “Everybody loves the kid. His fighting style is f*cking exactly what I like. It’s right up my alley. Everybody I love about a fighter ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone is. He’s a couple fights away from having that big fight.”
You can check out the first episode of “UFC Unfiltered” with the Dana White interview by clicking here.
H/T to MMAFighting.com for transcribing the above Dana White quotes.
