Dana White and Oscar De La Hoya's war of words might definitely turn into an actual altercation.
According to MMA Fighting, the two are MMA's most successful promoters. Unfortunately, the discussion of the two parties headed towards a bizarre conversation and it escalated over dueling media appearances.
De La Hoya is a 2014 inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the head of Golden Boy Promotions. He reportedly challenged White to a fight during an appearance on The Luke Thomas Show on Sirius XM during the Thursday afternoon episode. "Let's get in the ring. Yeah, why not? Let's get in the ring. Three rounds, let's do this," says De La Hoya.
It can be recalled that the rivalry between the two promoters dates back years. However, things really heated up in recent weeks after the previously all-boxing promotional company Golden Boy staged its first MMA event. De La Hoya used two retired UFC legends as their first main event in Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz.
After the heavily panned event where Ortiz earned a one-sided during the first-round knockout victory over Liddell at the Forum in Inglewood, California, the two sides here able to ramp up their verbal attacks on one another. The earlier mentioned source says White has referred to de la Hoya as a "cokehead." De La Hoya, on the other hand, has repeatedly criticized the Payscale of UFC.
In response, a visibly angry White appeared on the ESPN show "First Take" last Thursday. As expected, he attempted to refute the claims of De La Hoya. "It's one thing to sit around with your friends and lie. It's another thing to go on ESPN and lie. So here are the facts. I have paid Chuck Liddell more money over the years not to fight in the last seven years more than he was paid to fight Tito Ortiz. That's a fact, number one. From 2011 to 2017, when I asked him to retire, we paid him around $400,000 a year to not fight," White ended.
California State Athletic Commission released the official fight purses and according to it, Liddell was paid $250,000 for the bout. This is a figure that excludes potential PPV points. The PPV has an estimation of over 30,000 buys.
White continued to explain that out of the $580,000 in disclosed fighter payouts, over $450,000 went to Liddell and Ortiz. Therefore, only $95,000 went to the 16 fights, not below the main event and co-feature bouts.
While we do not know where the truth lies, De La Hoya is no doubt eager to bring this all inside the ring.
