Dana White trashes Bob Arum over Terence Crawford complaints

Dana White has some choice words for Bob Arum after the boxing promoter complained about losing money promoting Terence Crawford.

Crawford returned to the ring over the weekend, picking up a victory over Kell Brook. The win reaffirmed him as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, but he has struggled to meaningful gain traction among boxing fans nonetheless.

Post-fight Arum complained to  The Athletic about the difficulty he’s had promoting Crawford, and the money he’s lost as he attempted to do so.

“I could build a house in Beverly Hills on the money I lost on him in the last three fights,” Arum said.

Speaking at the conclusion of this week’s episode of Contender Series, White was asked for his thoughts on this comment from Arum, who has been the object of his derision countless times over the years. The UFC boss emphasized that Arum should not be blaming Crawford for this issue, and that the responsibility to make fighters marketable lies with the promoter—not the fighters themselves.

“Can you imagine if I said that?” White said. “Are you (expletive) kidding me? You guys would murder me if I said that. I’d never hear the end of that. That’s what you do. That’s not (Crawford’s) (expletive) problem, that’s your problem.

“His problem isn’t to figure out how you make money. You (expletive) signed a deal with this kid, at how many people we have on the roster, our roster is very inflated right now. We have a very big roster, the biggest roster we’ve ever had in the history of the company. I have to pay all these kids. How I pay them is not their (expletive) problem. It’s my (expletive) problem.”

While Dana White makes a solid point here, it is worth noting that he’s made similar complaints about UFC fighters in the past, most notably former flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson who, despite being one of the best fighters of all time, struggled to catch on with fans.

“I had a guy who was completely dominant, every time he fought he was exciting and always went for the finish, but people didn’t care,” White told ESPN.com’s Brett Okamoto in 2019. “Nobody cared whatsoever about Demetrious Johnson.”

According to White’s latest logic, if “nobody cared  whatsoever” about Demetrious Johnson, that’s his own fault as Johnson’s promoter.

What do you think of these comments from the UFC boss?