If there is one thing you can say about Dana White, it is that the guy is going to do and say whatever he wants without any consideration to whether or not it makes the fans angry, or if it ends up back-stabbing someone that has always been there for him.
It is times like these that I start to feel like the man is a megalomaniac sociopath that doesn't actually consider the consequences of his actions and how it can affect someone else.
That being said, if you are involved in the fight game, particularly as a fighter that in under contract that he controls, one of the worst things you can do is publicly call Dana out, and threaten him.
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After UFC 317 and the swift elimination of Charles Oliveira by Champion Ilia Topuria a lot of folks out there feel a couple of emotions here: First off that Oliveira is likely out of the championship picture for a while and two, who will be next of Topuria?
Now the thing about Dana is that he doesn't always consider who is actually the "2nd best" in these situations. He will pretend that this is what is on his mind but what he is really doing is thinking about how in his roster can generate the most hype and therefore, money. Now when we look at Justin Gaethje, who is a very accomplished fighter and exciting in the octagon, he simply doesn't have the mass appeal outside of it that has become necessary these days, so it seems.
In the meantime, someone like Paddy Pimblett and Shawn O'Malley have made meteoric rises in popularity MORE SO because of their online persona over their actual performances. They way they dress, the silly quips, and how they maintain exhausting levels of social media exposure keeps them fresh. Gaethje on the other hand, is basically invisible and while fans know he is a good fighter, when he does appear here and there we are like "oh yeah, I forgot he was an MMA guy!"
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Justin has been around for a while and he has been the champion before, he has also been the stupid BMF champion but lost it in a very exciting match vs Max Holloway. He, and this is important, was very willing to help out the UFC on short notice a number of times when other opponents were unable to make it for whatever bullshit illness or injury that they were going through. Basically Justin has been the yes-man or what they are saying now a "company man" for a long time. I don't know if he was doing this on purpose thinking that his loyalty was going to pay off for him but recently he did one of the only ballsy things that he has ever done outside of being one of the best cage-fighters in the world that is, when he called out Dana White and the UFC after Oliveira went down for the KO in the first round in 317.
‘If I’m not going to fight for the title, I’m just going to hang up my gloves.’…
Were the words that Gaethje put out to the world in an interview with Submission Radio. I don't know if Justin thought this through or wondered what Dana's reaction would be but Dana didn't respond to this so well and when pressed about it in a press conference Dana didn't seem to be too keen on being threatened and basically told Justin to "go ahead and retire."
It seems as though Dana has already gotten his hooks into all the other people involved as well because Topuria didn't so much as mention his name when it was brought up about who he wants next. These fighters pretend as though it is up to them who they face next but unless you are Jon Jones, you don't actually get to choose. Hell, even Jon Jones didn't get to choose as so much time went by.
Dana is going to pick who he thinks that sell the most tickets and while Dana would secretly probably prefer to keep Justin around if he can, he would much rather go for the bigger payday in Paddy Pimblett and I think that is the direction that this title is heading.
"If you're thinking about retiring, you know how I feel about that: You should probably retire. We love Justin Gaethje, and Justin Gaethje did step up and he's been an exciting, fun fighter to have here in the UFC. But to say, 'Listen, unless you give me a title shot I'm retiring,' that's pretty wacky."
These are pretty words that Dana responded with in front of the press and if he is being a bit passive aggressive in front of the cameras, you can be assured that he is considerably more angry behind the scenes. I don't see a title shot coming for Gaethje and now that Justin has Told Dana that Dan MUST do something or he will quit, you can be guaranteed that Justin is either going to bend the knee, or actually go and quit.
If he does quit I hope his PR team can make a big spectacle of him going over to Bellator or something like that... but he is going to take a huge financial hit by doing anything like that.
We'll have to wait and see but the one thing that you definitely don't do in this game, is insult the real champ, Dana White. He holds everyone's future in the palm of his hand.