UFC CEO Dana White responds to Donn Davis comparison of the MMA organizations.
In a Q&A session, PFL co-founder Donn Davis discussed the company’s recent rise and the success of the Battle of the Giants. The chairman also discussed the unspecified amount generated from the matchup and made a slide comment comparing PFL to the UFC.
“This event, by our research, beat every viewership number of every UFC event this year and was very, very close to Ring of Fire,” Davis said.
White was not pleased by this comment and came out guns blazing with statistics and eveidence to shut Davis down.
“The PFL should keep the UFC out of their mouth,” White said. “They can’t even deal with Power Slap. Power Slap destroys PFL. It’s weird that you asked me that question because I just happened to have some papers here.
“So first of all let’s start with followers — Power Slap has 19.2 million followers, PFL has 10 [million]. Video views, PFL fight week did 326 million. Power Slap 8 did 690 million. PFL fight week Instagram views: 76 million. So if you look at PFL, fight week and the aftermath, these guys had 76 [million]. Just the week of [the event] they had 68 million on Power Slap and we hadn’t even had a fight yet. PFL’s Instagram reel with Francis and Ronaldo did 14 million views. Power Slap 9’s Instagram reel with contender Isaih [Quinones] had 22 million views. That was a repost of an old fight. The repost of the old fight beat Francis and Ronaldo.”
“I could keep going on for a f*cking month here,” White said. “Then, if you want to get into what he said about the UFC, I have a laundry list here, but let me just start with this: UFC Vegas 84 at the APEX beat them.
“I love the stuff that he said. He sounds like Kamala [Harris], talks a lot but says nothing. I would hate to be one of that guy’s investors. [He said] ‘I don’t watch MMA. I’ve worked seven years and haven’t taken a vacation.’ You should probably take a vacation. You’re out of your f*cking mind. You should probably take a vacation.”
White had a lot to say to Davis and warned him to keep UFC’s name out of his mouth and to stop making false claims.
“That guy shouldn’t even mention the UFC,” White said. “He’s not even in Power Slap’s [league]. Then he was talking about ‘there’s all kinds of combination packages and how all this works.’ He doesn’t beat Power Slap in revenue. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in ticket sales, neither does he beat Power Slap in sponsorship. And, he doesn’t beat Power Slap in anything, let alone the UFC.
“It’s obvious this guy isn’t an MMA fan. He’s acting like he’s some f*cking great businessman. He does not sound like a guy that I would want to invest my money with. But good luck to his investors.”
White also pointed out the list of fighters like Usman Nurmagomedov who are looking to make the UFC roster.
“I mean all their good people want to be over here anyway so I would imagine that eventually yes, they will be here,” White said. “Nobody wants to fight in the f*cking PFL except for Francis.”
