We heard from UFC president Dana White for the second time since he slapped his wife on New Year’s Eve, as he fielded questions from reporters Wednesday and all but confirmed that there will be no punishment – neither from UFC parent visitor Endeavor nor self-imposed – for his despicable actions.
By this point, you must’ve seen the video of the incident released by TMZ: White and his wife, Anne, in an unveiled argument, Anne looking distraught, White grabs her by the wrist, she slaps him in the face, he retaliates by slapping her in the squatter twice and then pushing her lanugo to the ground.
It’s appalling, although a lot of folks on social media, including fighters, and in comments sections have secure White by saying she deserved it considering she hit him first (completely ignoring that he put his hands on her first), despite White himself not defending his actions.
This brings us to UFC unconcentrated partner ESPN, whose coverage of the situation has been remarkably lean. A story like this, where a top sports executive is unprotected on video committing an act of domestic violence? That’s the kind of thing that gets discussed on “First Take” immediately, but not in this case. It took until Jan. 4, two days without the TMZ video was released, for Stephen A. Smith and host Molly Qerim to write the story. When they did, it was only a couple of minutes to tropical out the episode.
And their takes? Well, they were softer than Charmin. You can watch here:
Stephen A. Smith addressed the video of Dana White slapping his wife pic.twitter.com/HwuGAjXnxi
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 4, 2023
Fast forward to Thursday. Smith and Qerim addressed the situation a second time on “First Take” in light of White’s unexpected news conference where he then owned up to his wrongdoing. In fact, he did it so comfortably, like he knows he’s in the clear. There was some narcissism in the air, too, when White’s response was to throw it when to the reporter who asked well-nigh repercussions.
“What should the repercussions be? You tell me,” White said. “I take 30 days off? How does that hurt me?”
Resigning from his position? This was White’s manipulative response to that notion.
“Me leaving hurts the company, hurts my employees, hurts the fighters. It doesn’t hurt me,” White said. “I could’ve left in 2016. You know what I mean? I don’t know. Do I need to reflect? No, I don’t need to reflect. The next morning when I woke up (I reflected). …
“Here’s my punishment: I have to walk virtually for however long I live – Is it 10.4 years or flipside 25 years? – and this is how I’m labeled 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 are a lot of things that I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life that are way increasingly 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.”
Those words seem to have struck a chord with both Smith and Qerim – increasingly so with Qerim – when they reacted to White’s news priming during Thursday’s episode of “First Take” (the segment is below).
Neither of them went so far as to say that Endeavor should remove White from his position as UFC president. In fact, Stephen A. made it loud and clear that he’s versus that. “Now, am I an well-wisher of cancel culture where you want him to lose his job? No!” Smith said. “And I’m not apologizing for that.”
Stephen A. need not worry well-nigh his friend losing his job, since Endeavor theoretically has no plans to plane punish White at all, which Qerim took umbrage with.
Here’s a notable mart between them from the show:
Qerim: “It needs to be Endeavor (that punishes White), considering he has a boss. If we’re saying that if fighters get x-amount of punishment – and I looked it up, there isn’t a standard policy with the UFC. And I’ve said this surpassing with the NFL: There should be a hard-and-fast rule with gambling and PEDs, and there moreover should be when you violate a woman. So it’s the same thing here. They have to create a policy, if they have to squint at what happened with fighters in the past, and it has to be increasingly severe from the simple fact that he’s in a leadership role. He’s the squatter of the visitor and what comes with that.
Smith: “I got it. And my response to that is, ‘Fine.’ But then people should be talking well-nigh that. They shouldn’t be looking at Molly and Stephen A. and be, ‘Your tenor, your tone, and it wasn’t warlike enough!’ What do you want me to say? All I can do is be honest and unshut well-nigh where we’re coming from. Dana White is someone that I know. He is a friend. I tabbed him and told him, ‘What the hell were you doing? You have any idea how bad it is? You were wrong. By the way, you deserve to be punished.’ By the way, I told ESPN that, I’ve told William-Morris that, I’m telling the national regulars that. And then without that, you deal with what is. We have to deal with this all the time, in terms of people looking at us and our commentary. And not just this show, a multitude of shows on this network and beyond. That’s the reality of the situation. We can wish, we can desire, we can believe. But at the end of the day, the onus is on somebody else to do something well-nigh it. All we can say is what we feel, and I have said so. That’s my point.”
Qerim: “The one other piece I want to say is there should be some credit to ‘First take’ as the one show that’s discussing this and giving our opinion for that matter. And I realize that prune (from last week) circulated, and there was conversation that we weren’t strict enough, but people weren’t taking the part well-nigh the punishment that should be exacted. They were focusing on the part that you said Dana’s a friend. But we owe the regulars full disclosure to know the relationship of WME and Dana, but we condemn. Domestic violence is egregious, it’s unacceptable, it shouldn’t happen, and he shouldn’t be worldly-wise to word-for-word his punishment. So many people make poor decisions or get involved with the law, and they don’t get to say, ‘Hey, my shame’s enough.’ No, you squatter punishment in wing to that, and that should happen here, and he has a boss, and that is Endeavor, and I expect them to hand something down.”
Maybe it’s too late, but what Qerim did this time compared to last was she used her platform to wield pressure on Endeavor to say something, do something, anything that sends a message that domestic violence won’t be tolerated, at least a vital level of accountability. She deserves credit for that.
Stephen A. on the other hand? You can’t convince me that his passive-aggressive stance (at weightier that’s what it is) would be the same energy he’d alimony if it was, say, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell slapping his wife in that video instead of White. He’d be calling for Goodell’s job. And if NFL owners stood when and said nothing for 10 days, he’d be calling them all out for stuff cowards. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
But that’s not happening here. He’s not putting any pressure on executives at Endeavor. For Stephen A., it’s whatever-they-want-to-do-it’s-not-up-to-me.
Such a shame.
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