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Luke Rockhold called Dana White “belittling” his fighters, suggesting that the UFC president had previously tried to beat him mentally. Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold has criticized promotion head Dana White as a “tyrant.”
For Luke Rockhold, the recent aggressive negotiation tactics demonstrated by the UFC president are not new. The former middleweight champion was a recent guest on the Rippin ‘It podcast, where he revealed that Dana White had previously tried to beat him mentally after losing his UFC 199 title from Michael Bisping.
“Fighting is like a mafia. They have these very mafioso-type tactics in negotiations, they try to f–k with you. I’m not having any of it,” Rockhold explained (transcription via BroBible). “If you don’t know your worth someone will tell you your worth and it’ll be less than your worth, so know your worth. Once I lost the world title, Dana White came up to me and tried to beat me down mentally and I was like ‘f–k you,’ straight up. I was like I’m going to go do my own thing, if you’re going to try and offer me this and that bull–it, you know who I am and what I did, that’s the only reason I went out and got a modeling contract so I could leverage myself.”
Luke Rockhold continued and proceeded to dub the UFC boss as a “tyrant”.
“We don’t have the governing body. We’ve got an egotistical guy that’s a bit of a tyrant,” Rockhold said. “No one is going to try and fight you, you’ve got to put your ass on the line, stand your ground, take risk, otherwise you get treated like a b–ch. It’s unfortunate, a guy like that, he thinks he can fight, he thinks he’s a fighter. I don’t understand why he’s trying to belittle all the fighters when you’ve never fought a day in your life. You’re a promoter. We need a governing body to give people what they deserve, he doesn’t play the game right.”
In a recent interview with TMZ Sports, Luke Rockhold provided an update on his proposed MMA comeback.
“I think realistically I think this summertime, a late-summer return. I just gotta get my body right. My shoulder’s been an ongoing issue but it’s finally coming around. I’m getting to the point where I have confidence in it to let it go. I’m pressing. I’m pressing to get into shape. It feels good. It feels good to get back in the gym. I’m finally getting a little fire back!”