UFC President Dana White had long expressed his rivalry with MMA promotion Strikeforce as peaceful. While UFC would not go out of its way to assist the company in its growth, the UFC would not view the promotion as a bitter enemy, the way it did startups like Affliction.
But the truce appears to be over, at least as far as White is concerned. At a press conference for Saturday’s UFC 101 event, White said of the promotion’s recent Fedor Signing, “He’ll put them out of business. They have no money. They have no money, and they have no distribution. Four [censored] people watch Showtime.”
The criticism was not limited to their signing of touted heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, who had been in negotiations with UFC last month.
“They’re a small-town show,” said White. “Cung Le hasn’t defended the title since like 1997. Josh Thomson hasn’t defended the belt in like two years. Who is their other champion? Alistair Overeem; he hasn’t defended the belt in like two years. It’s Strikefarce. It’s a little regional show with no one in it.”
Though White stopped short of declaring war on the rival promotion, he warned, “If they want to fight me, we’re going to fight. We know how that goes, and we know how it ends.”