Dana White Jun 13, 2022; San Francisco, California, USA; UFC president Dana White gestures during the first half in game five of the 2022 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Two months after Dana White was seen on video slapping his wife, the UFC owner wants to make sure the world knows that the true bad guys are members of the media who criticized his MMA company during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Never much of a fan of journalism, White has been making the round in recent days, telling various outlets that he is currently working on a documentary in which he intends to call out and shame media organizations that have been critical of his promotion.

“I’m making a documentary about the media that I’m putting together that I can’t wait to put out. Where I’m calling people out by name, the publication they work for… I can’t wait, trust me this is going to be a passion project for me,” White recently told OutKick’s The Gunz Show.

On an earlier appearance on My Mom’s Basement With Robbie Fox, White noted that his documentary plans were specific to media criticism he and UFC received during the pandemic.

“It’s just like when we went through COVID, you know and I had to listen to all the bull**** as we went through COVID,” said White. “And then after I came out with a little documentary I did about the media going into COVID. Which is gonna be even bigger, I’m working on even a bigger piece about the media and the guys…Wait ‘till you see this bad boy…Faces, publications, names, what they said, the whole deal. It’s gonna live forever. And I’ll do the same thing with Power Slap once we get where we’re going,” White said, referencing his TBS show that the network declined to pick up for a second season.

During a time when every major American professional sports league or promotion had suspended fully attended events, UFC was the first to do so, holding UFC 261 at Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida in April 2021. Around 15,000 people were said to be in attendance.

White went on to specifically criticize the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which he called “one of the biggest piece of s*** f’n newspapers across the country.”

“Their headline is 12,000 people are willing to die to watch a UFC event live,” White added. “What it tells you is weak, whiny, terrified, uneducated…and that’s the thing with most of these media guys. They are the weakest, wimpiest people on Earth trying to talk about [things], and there within lies the problem.”

The article that White is referencing had a different headline, but the lede read “At least 15,000 people are willing to risk permanent damage or death to attend a live sporting event again.” The line was less an opinion and more in reference to the disclaimer included on the ticket to White’s own event, which said that attendance “may lead to exposure to COVID-19 and that contraction of COVID-19 may result in severe and permanent damage to the health of the Holder and/or others including, but not limited to, death.”

As required by law, White also took time out of his OutKick interview to malign cancel culture, which is quite the admonishment from a man who publicly slapped his wife and suffered zero consequences over it.

“It’s like this whole cancel culture thing and all the things that are going on in this world today,” said White, whom many felt ESPN protected due to its relationship with UFC. “You, and you alone decide your fate – you don’t let these outside forces come in, and all the noise and all the BS knock you off track from what you want to do.”

White also shared his personal philosophy for dealing with critics, which he related to being in war.

“When I started Power Slap, I had this [quote] installed in my office and it says, ‘May God have mercy upon my enemies – because I won’t.’ And I have it in there in my office and I look at it every f’n day and that is the way that I’m wired and that is the way I think all day, every single day.”

Sounds exhausting.

[The Gunz Show, Fox News, My Mom’s Basement With Robbie Fox]

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Editorial Strategy Director for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.