UFC president Dana White would rather leave “loser leaves town” matches to the WWE. He’s not a big believer in giving fighters ultimatums or telling them their next fight is a must win if they want to say in the UFC. However, he’s making an exception at UFC 168.
From his recent media scrum in Rio de Janeiro:
“No, I don’t ever think of matches as the loser leaves town, unless you’re talking about Uriah Hall’s next fight. Uriah Hall needs to win a fight or Uriah Hall will be leaving town.”
Dana White is clearly frustrated by the disappointing 0-2 run of Uriah Hall in the UFC. Hall, who was a sensation on the 17th season of The Ultimate Fighter, lost the TUF Finale to Kevin Gastelum by split decision and then went on to lose another SD to John Howard at UFC Fight Night 26.
White is less unhappy with the fact that Hall lost those fights than the way Hall lost those fights.
Here’s what White said about Hall following the Howard fight:
“If I could take Brad Pickett’s brain and heart and put it inside Uriah Hall’s body, holy s— there would be some damage done,” White said. “Because Uriah Hall has all the physical attributes to be amazing. He’s got speed, he’s got power, he’s unbelievable. He doesn’t have what it mentally takes to fight here. You know what I mean?
“Its a mental thing,” White said. “He was this killer on TUF, and then he comes into the big show where it really matters and this is going to make your livelihood and everything else, and he turns into this different person. This super nice guy. He was telling me after the Kelvin fight ‘I really like him, he’s a really nice guy. OK, well that really nice guy just took everything you wanted. Do you get what I’m saying, does that make sense to you? I guess it doesn’t make sense to him.”
Hall’s explanationof his lackadaisical performance against Gastelum is no more reassuring:
“I was trying to have some fun, man. A big part of it was it was it was kind of hard, too. I trained with the guy, and I like him. It was kind of that emotion I was trying to get rid of, so it was kind of weird.
“Going in the ring, I was like, ‘S—, here we go again.’ That side just kind of got the best of me, but there’s no excuse. Kelvin’s a great guy. He’s a tough kid. I think he’s going to go really far in this sport, and I’m happy for him.”
Can Hall find his fury and put a hurt on Chris Leben at UFC 168? We’ll find out in December.
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