Cesar Gracie wades in on the team mate debate: Why doesn’t Dana White punch Lorenzo Fertitta in the face?

Renowned MMA coach, Cesar Gracie has decided to take it upon himself to fight the good fight against the whole team mate vs. team mate scenario, explaining he’d never want to see any of his guys square off inside the cage against each other, as well as coming up with a unique way to give the powers that be a new perspective on the situation.
On a recent appearance on The Fight Show, Gracie said:

“You first have to define the term ‘teammate.’ If a teammate is starting a camp and you recruit fighters from outside who have never met each other or barely know each other and you bring them in, OK now you’re training here. Well, you know, they can fight each other because these guys haven’t grown up in the sport before that.”

“When you get a guy like Jake Shields and Nick Diaz, Gilbert Melendez, Nathan Diaz, guys like that what happens is these guys went from beginning [at] white belt and at the very infant stages of their careers to where they’re at now, superstars. So, in that sense, it doesn’t make sense for them to fight.

“I would never have Nick and Jake fight each other and I wouldn’t have Gilbert and Nathan fight each other, it’s just not going to happen. Whether the fans want it or not… we get a lot of people complaining about that, that’s usually people who aren’t part of a team or who have never trained in their lives so they are looking at it from a different viewpoint than we do.”

“You know, Dana White doesn’t appreciate that because he’s always looking for the big-money fight and what the fans want, to make money. But I’ll pose this question to him – when’s he going to fight one of the Fertitta brothers? Not going to happen! Someone offers him a bunch of money, is he going to go punch Lorenzo in the face, possibly knocking his teeth out for money?”

“How about a childhood friend? If they grew up together, made money together and everything, he’s not going to go fight that guy. Well, why not? What if the fans called for it tomorrow? What if we thought that was interesting? And people obviously would pay to see that. Is he going to do it? No. OK, well, there you go.”

The UFC have seemingly stuck a wedge in between light heavyweight stars, Jon Jones and Rashad Evans in the last couple of months, something the likes of Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck have been able to avoid up until this point of their careers. What’s your take on the whole team mate vs. team mate debate and more importantly would you like to see Dana White punch Lorenzo Fertitta in the face?