Dana White Believes Jake Paul Canceled Event Because Of Low Ticket And Pay-Per-View Sales

Dana White has a reason as to why the Jake Paul-Hasim Rahman Jr. fight was called off just a week before the event.

On Saturday, Paul revealed Rahman Jr. was too heavy and the commission wanted to move the fight up to 205lbs but Rahman Jr. insisted on 215lbs which he says is not true. However, the event ended up being canceled and according to UFC president, Dana White, he has another reason as to why the event got canceled.

“I think they sold under a million dollars in tickets, and it costs $500,000 to turn the f****** lights on at MSG,” White said at the UFC 277 post-fight press conference (h/t MMAFighting). “That’s what I think. Not to mention hotel rooms in New York and transportation and everything else is very expensive.”

Although White has taken shots at Paul in the past, he says he’s not happy or will gloat that the fight didn’t happen. Yet, he does think Jake Paul needs new people around him as he says Nakisa Bidarian – the former CFO of the UFC – doesn’t know how to run a promotion.

“I’m not going to sit up here and be happy or gloat that their fight fell out,” White said. “Both those guys I’m sure put in a lot of hard work and a lot of training to get ready for this fight, spent money to get ready for this fight… I will say this, just because you were an accountant here doesn’t mean you know what the f*** goes on here. It doesn’t mean you can run a fight promotion company. I think that Jake Paul probably needs to get some different people around him. If he’s going to stay in the sport, he needs to be with guys that really know how to put on fights.”

As of right now, it’s uncertain when Jake Paul will box again and who it will be against.

What do you make of Dana White’s comments?