Dana White has said he didn’t realise Jake Paul’s next fight was going head-to-head with UFC 317 – or that Paul was promoting the bout with one of White’s oldest critics, Oscar De La Hoya.
Paul has joined forces with De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions for his next matchup against former world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
The event is set to take place on Saturday, June 28th – the same date as UFC 317 in Las Vegas – which suggests both will have to contend with a split audience.
While Paul’s fights always attract plenty of attention, UFC 317 boasts a main card featuring major matchups like Ilia Topuria vs Charles Oliveira and Alexandre Pantoja vs. Kai Kara-France. However, according to Dana White, this wasn’t an intentional move to compete with the boxing event.
Dana White says he didn’t know Jake Paul’s next fight clashed with UFC 317
Even though the two shows are likely to split the pay-per-view audience, Dana White seemed unfazed when speaking to Bloody Elbow – admitting he didn’t know about the clash or who Paul was even fighting.
“I didn’t even f***ing know that,” White said. “I didn’t even know he was fighting, so that’s how concerned I am about it.”
When asked whether he thought Chavez Jr. was a good matchup for Paul, who’s often been questioned about his level of opposition, White called it an “interesting” fight but repeated he wasn’t aware the matchup was happening.
After being told De La Hoya was involved in the promotion, White responded, “No f***ing way,” before describing the event as a “s*** show.”
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Dana White fires at Oscar De La Hoya for false claim about Alvarez vs Crawford
White and De La Hoya’s mutual dislike goes back years, with De La Hoya even venturing into promoting an MMA event at one point. Although it didn’t go well for him. The back-and-forth still flares up from time to time, with White rarely missing an opportunity to take a shot.
De La Hoya recently told media members that Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford would be broadcast during daytime hours on September 13th. The goal would allegedly be to avoid overlap with the UFC’s Noche event in Texas that evening.
But White told Bloody Elbow that claim was completely false – and questioned how De La Hoya would even have inside knowledge of those plans.
“How the f*** would he know that?” White said. “It’s not true. So you’re saying that when we were talking about getting into it and that some people would [be upset], does De La Hoya count? I mean, come on.”
“It’s not that there’s any rivalry, De La Hoya is just a d****e bag, there’s a big difference between that and rivalry … Some of these guys I have great relationships with, and then there’s the f***ing lunatics like De La Hoya and [Bob] Arum and guys like that.
“Listen, we’re going to do what we do, we’re going to move forward and we pretty much do everything that we say we’re going to do, we get it done. I’m not looking at anybody as a rival or we’re going to take this guy out or any of that, people in the boxing business don’t work too well.”
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