Dana White won’t face UFC punishment for domestic abuse

White held a press conference on Wednesday to address the raging outrage at the vision of him slapping his wife in a Mexico nightclub as media commentators in the US continued to demand he either step down or be sacked as boss of the UFC.

But White addressed the media and said there was no point facing any punishment from his employers as his public tarnishing was hurting him more and that losing his job would only hurt the UFC and the fighters.

“What should the repercussions be? You tell me,” White said.

“I take 30 days off? How does that hurt me? I told you guys when we were going through Covid, Covid could last 10 years. I could have sat it out.

“It’s much like Covid, actually. Me leaving hurts the company, hurts my employees, hurts the fighters. It doesn’t hurt me.

“I could have left in 2016. I don’t know, do I need to reflect? No, I don’t need to reflect. The next morning when I woke up … I’ve been against this. I’ve owned this. I’m telling you that I was wrong.

“Listen, we’ve had plenty of discussions internally with Ari [Emanuel, the Endeavour CEO], ESPN. Nobody’s happy. Nobody’s happy about this. Neither am I, but it happened and I have to deal with it.

“What is my punishment? You’re my punishment. I’ve got to walk around for however long I live, whether it’s 10 years or another 25 years and this is how I’m labelled now.
“My other punishment is I’m sure a lot of people, whether it be media, fighters, friends, acquaintances who had respect for me might not have respect for me now.

“There’s a lot of things I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life that are way more of a punishment than what, I take a 30-day, 60-day absence.

“That’s not a punishment to me. The punishment is that I did it and now I have to deal with it.”

White noted how it was “ironic” his incident occurred just as he was about to launch a new project “Power Slap League.”

But rather than cancel the venture, it was merely delayed from January 11 to January 18 with a television debut on TBS in the US.

White has also come under fire after previous comments he had made about domestic abuse, saying there is no way to come back from it as a man.

He again reiterated that stance, conceding his reputational damage is severe and life-lasting.

“You don’t bounce back from this. You don’t ever bounce back from this,” White said.

“For the rest of my life, like I said, however long that is, people are going to label me that. I did it. That’s it. I did it. … You don’t bounce back from it. You wake up every day and try to be better than you were yesterday, and you make sure that that never happens again.

“Whatever steps you’d have to take to make sure that you’re never in that situation and that never happens again, that’s what I need to do. And it’s a fact. There’s a couple things in life that you don’t bounce back from, and this is one of them. That’s a fact.

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“It was obviously a horrible personal experience, and there’s no excuses for it.

“It’s something that I’m going to have to deal with and live with for the rest of my life.

“And one thing that I do want to clarify with this thing that I didn’t talk about on TMZ, because I didn’t expect it and I didn’t it coming, is the people that are defending me. There is never an excuse. I’m sure you guys have read some of the same stuff that I’ve seen. There is no defence for this, and people should not be defending me over this thing, no matter what.”

Originally published as Dana White won’t face UFC punishment for domestic abuse