Floyd Mayweather: Dana White Worked For Us When Nobody Knew Who He Was
Despite having never having set foot anywhere remotely close to a mixed martial arts (MMA) cage, pound-for-pound boxing great Floyd Mayweather still finds himself at the epicenter of several various discussions surrounding the UFC.
There’s been seemingly endless talk of whether or not he could defeat women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, and interim featherweight champion Conor McGregor recently made headlines by saying he’d “hit Mayweather so hard that he’d learn to read.”
And who could forget the time he allegedly tried to ‘jack’ UFC bantamweight Aljamain Sterling’s girlfriend at a pool party.
However, now apparently growing tired of the highly speculative situations, ‘Money’ is supposedly here to put those stories to rest in a recent interview with FightHype.com.
Just not before he gets in a few jabs of his own.
The decorated undefeated champ harkened back to his early days as a pugilist, recalling a time when his uncle Jeff employed UFC president Dana White. According to ‘Money,’ White was quite different than the aggressive, standoffish president we see on TV these days:
“”I can remember, I think you can go back to the beginning, to day one of my career, my first fight — my uncle Jeff Mayweather and I, that’s when Dana White used to work for us, he used to be with us. When nobody else knew who Dana White was, before when he was a little square white guy, before he cut all his hair off and became a tough guy in the MMA.”
Mayweather described a time when White was looking for backing in the fight game, which ‘Money’ did in order to show him some early support. The polarizing champ said he was ‘proud’ of how far White has come:
“He used to run around with me and nobody would wear his patch and I said I would do it for free, showed him love and I’m proud of him. I’m proud of how far he has come.”
Yet apart from any backhanded, passive-aggressive criticisms, Mayweather said that he simply shouldn’t be stooping down to MMA’s level. With boxing’s biggest-ever financial payday coming his way after his May 2 win over Manny Pacquiao, ‘Money’ is thankful for the opportunities he’s been given, and claims that he wishes all MMA fighters nothing but the best:
“I’m in the $100 million business, not the $100,000 business. I shouldn’t even be stooping to certain levels, because it doesn’t make any sense. People that’s in MMA, I wish them nothing but the best. I don’t have anything negative to say about them. The hand I was dealt in life, I was dealt a royal flush and I just have to be thankful and appreciative of the hand I was dealt.
“I don’t have anything negative to say about anyone. I wish everyone of them nothing but the best.”
As for the oft-discussed and beat-to-death topic of fighting Rousey one day, Mayweather dismissed it with the degree of humor that it should probably be dealt with consistently:
“You’re a comedian,” he said.