January 12, (THEWILL) – On New Year’s Eve, Dana White, the President of the UFC, had a confrontation with his wife in a nightclub during which he slapped her. White spoke to the media about the incident on Wednesday.
He began without equivocation but stopped short of repercussions for himself: “There’s never an excuse. There’s no defence for this and people should not be defending me over this thing no matter what. All the criticism that I have received this week is 100 percent warranted.
“What should the repercussions be? I take 30 days off? How does that hurt me? … Me leaving hurts the company, hurts my employees, hurts the fighters. It doesn’t hurt me. I could have left in 2016. Do I need to reflect? I don’t need to reflect. I’ve owned this. I’m telling you that I’m wrong.
“We’ve had plenty of discussions internally with (Endeavor CEO) Ari (Emanuel), ESPN, nobody is happy. Nobody is happy about this. Neither am I. But it happened and I have to deal with it. What is my punishment? Here’s my punishment. I have to walk around for however long I live—10.4 years or another 25 years—and this is how I’m labelled now. My other punishment?
“I’m sure a lot of people, whether 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 more of a punishment than what, I take a 30-day absence? That’s not a punishment to me. The punishment to me is that I did it and now have to deal with it.”
