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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
With Wanderlei Silva preaching on the ills of the UFC and their treatment of fighters, UFC President Dana White once again responded in an interview with Brazil's Combate after Friday's UFC 178 weigh-ins in Las Vegas.
White contested Silva's comments on fighter pay and treatment by the UFC, but added that he sees it as a strategy on Silva's part to deflect attention from the fact that he fled from a drug test.
"You know how much money Wanderlei Silva has made since he's been with the UFC? $9.7 million," White said (via MMAFighting.com). "So Silva says everybody's getting rich except the fighters. What does Wanderlei consider rich? $9.7 million isn't rich? A lot of people would consider that rich. Let me tell you what: Wanderlei Silva has fought six times in the last five years. He's fought six times in five years. If being overworked is fighting one time a year, I don't know what to tell you.
"And I think his strategy right now is brilliant. If Wanderlei Silva was standing here, not me, and you're interviewing him, he would go crazy about 'I hate the UFC, these guys don't pay us, I've given them my body and they don't pay.'"
Silva remains under UFC contract despite his retirement and a ban from the Nevada Athletic Commission, and White feels Silva handled everything to do with that situation poorly.
"He's under contract. His contract is frozen," White said. "It doesn't matter. His contract doesn't matter. He has been banned from the athletic commission. He's appealing it, and he needs to go through the legal process. This thing is gonna play out. You know, I never had anything bad to say about Wanderlei, I still don't have anything bad to say about Wanderlei, but he could have not have handled this situation any worse than he has.
"Drug tests are in place for the safety of all the fighters. Not only did he run from the drug test, I kept calling him and he didn't return any of my calls, any of my texts, and he didn't return anybody else's phone calls and texts. This man disappeared from the face of the Earth for days."
Penick's Analysis: It all started with Silva being in the wrong to begin with, and because of that he's in the trouble he is now. He's definitely handled things poorly from the start, and he just hasn't been able to comprehend why it's not going his way. Now he's unloading because of that, and it's why his message, even with some validity to certain arguments or issues, doesn't carry as much weight as it would from someone not in his position. That's the biggest problem he faces now. As someone who fought in an organization where there was no active steroid testing for the bulk of his career, and who has faced PED questions plenty of times in the past, him skipping out on that one in May was enough to remove his credibility almost entirely.
[Wanderlei Silva art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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