UFC president Dana White couldn't believe that the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas — host to Saul "Canelo" Alvarez vs. Sergey Kovalev — showed its crowd the UFC 244 main event between Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal while they waited to see the face of boxing take the ring.
White explained how it all happened during the UFC 244 post-fight press conference early Sunday morning, before using the moment to bash Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya even further.
"So we were sitting there, and MGM called and said that, ‘You guys are halfway through your co-main event right now, people are losing their minds here,’ or whatever. ‘Can we show the Diaz fight at the MGM?,’” White explained. “And I was just like, ‘Holy s—! This is crazy! This is getting crazier by the minute!’ I woke up and dreamed all this, that it could happen. It was nuts. And of course, we said yes, and they did and wow.”
Join DAZN and watch more than 100 fight nights a year
White then told reporters that he implored De La Hoya to avoid scheduling Canelo vs. Kovalev on the same night as UFC 244.
“You guys know how I am, I f—g hate Oscar De La Hoya, he’s a scumbag, a snake," White said of his rival. "I told him not to go on this night. He did what he wanted to do and here we are. I respect Canelo and all the other fighters and guys who participate in the sport of boxing, and we got it worked out yesterday to where fans could see the other fights.
White added: "He didn’t do any of that. You think that idiot did that? He did none of that. It was much smarter people that surround him that started to do stuff, it wasn’t that moron. He’s an a—hole. How much more can I prove myself that this guy is an a—hole and a complete f— up?
"Right up to this fight, everything he’s done," he continued. "I used to help this guy, promote his fights, go on social media and say I’m watching. Then we did [Conor] McGregor [vs. Floyd] Mayweather, he tells people not to watch. Who does that? He says it’s a disgrace to boxing. Then he says he wants to fight McGregor next. He’s a snake, an all around bad guy. He’s really f—g weird too. Just to top it off.”
White's words come after Ryan Garcia delivered a first-round KO of Romero Duno in the co-main event to Canelo-Kovalev at around 11:30 p.m. ET Saturday night. DAZN didn't want Canelo to take the ring until the UFC 244 pay-per-view finished. That paved the way for MGM to show the UFC 244 ppv to its crowd which came to the arena to see Canelo. The UFC event didn't finish until about 1 a.m. ET, prompting the Canelo-Kovalev to begin at about 1:15 a.m. ET.
