Controversy reared its ugly head when ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith blasted Cerrone for his performance against McGregor, calling Cerrone a quitter among other things. The controversial comments from Smith led to a back and forth with Joe Rogan, who was on camera with Smith when the comments were first made.
UFC President Dana White was recently asked about Smith’s comments, which White said he was “not into” what the ESPN personality stated.
“One of the things when we bought and built the UFC that we always did, being fight fans ourselves … I’m a huge fight fan,” White said to MMA Junkie. “Lorenzo (Fertitta) was a huge fight fan. Joe Rogan is a huge fight fan. One of the things that we hated was on HBO boxing and some other boxing they would do. Listen, you’re tuning in and buying the pay-per-view because you love these guys and you respect these fighters, and you’re a fan of the sport. The last thing you want to do is hear somebody ripping them apart. I’m not into it. Rogan is not into it. You don’t see that in the UFC. There will be times where I’m pissed off at a guy, and I’ll voice my opinion on what he did or whatever – or if a fight is really bad or somebody did something. What we don’t do is, when a fight is over and a guy loses, we don’t go in and rip them apart. It’s just not our style. We’re fans. We don’t do it. I think Rogan was reacting to that. That’s our philosophy here. For Stephen A. Smith, that’s his thing. That’s what he does. It’s going to happen. You’re always going to have people who have difference in opinions, especially when you have two very opinionated guys like Stephen A. Smith and Joe Rogan.”
The UFC is back in action this weekend at UFC 247, it is unknown if Smith will appear on the pre-show and/or post-show broadcasts at this moment.
