Dana White makes peace with ESPN but he’s still not happy with the way they operate

UFC President, Dana White has gone into detail on how things have been smoothed over between him and network giant in the U.S., ESPN, before adding he’s going to stay on their case as he doesn’t believe the sport of mixed martial arts is getting the credit it deserves from them.

Speaking via MMAWeekly.com, Dana said:

“They did some stuff, but we’ve made up since then. I’ll tell you exactly what they did. When we announced the Fox deal, I was supposed to go to ESPN on Monday and do what’s called the ‘car wash.’ Basically, you go into ESPN in Bristol (Conn.) and you go through all the shows. When we announced the Fox deal, they canceled me and said, ‘oh yeah, we’re booked.’ Booked? You had me booked on Monday!”

“It’s just petty little stuff like that they do. They never give us the respect that I feel the athletes deserve. Listen, you don’t have to love this sport, but don’t deny that these guys are the greatest conditioned athletes in the world. All these other guys in the NFL and Major League Baseball are cross-training in mixed martial arts now in the off season.”

“I’m going to fight with ESPN when they do stuff like this, and they treat our guys like that. It drives me nuts. I talked to Skipper, and I’ve had a great relationship with Skipper, yet still can’t get anything done over at ESPN. ESPN is a news network, they cover everything. I mean, these guys cover the hot dog eating championships, ping pong, and darts are on ESPN. The cheerleading competition, the list goes on of all these fine, fabulous sporting events with all these incredible athletes. The spelling bee, yet the UFC does not get covered by ESPN.”

The promotion have headed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week for their first South American event in fifteen years as they continue to break into new regions and utilise new technologies