Dana White: ‘Wanderlei Silva was paid $9.7 million’ by the UFC

UFC president Dana White spoke to Brazil’s Globo about Wanderlei Silva’s bitter recriminations toward the promotion and allegations that the UFC is underpaying its athletes.

“If it was Wanderlei here talking to you, he would be like a crazy person saying how much he hates de UFC, about how little our fighters earn, how much he hurt his body because of this sport,” said White. “But let me tell you that he fought six times in the last five years. If you are working too much by fighting only once a year, I wouldn’t know what to say. Do you know how much money Wanderlei made since he begun to fight in the UFC. He earned $ 9,7 million dollars.He’s saying that everybody is getting rich but not the fighters, so what is getting rich for him? Many people would consider themselves rich with 9,7 million dollars.”

White also responded to Silva’s allegations that he was pressured to fight in May.

“When we offered him the fight and Wanderlei said that he was hurt, we sent him to a doctor twice and the doctor said twice: ‘This guy isn’t hurt, there is nothing wrong with him.’

“Lorenzo was saying this other day. Wanderlei has always said to us: ‘You are the best. You changed this sport. If it wasn’t because of you, me and my family wouldn’t have what we have today.’ Ask him about it, ask if he didn’t use to say this every time that he saw us. The answer is: yes, he used to say this. You know that he ran from a drug test. He not only ran away, I called him several times in that week and he didn’t return my calls, he didn’t answer my text messages and ignored everyone that called him. This guy disappeared from Earth for days.

“Wanderlei still has a contract with us and his contract is frozen. But it doesn’t matter. His contract doesn’t matter, nothing matters He was banned for NSAC and he is appealing, so we need to wait the end of this process to see how things will be. I’ve never had nothing bad to say about Wanderlei, I still have nothing to say against him, but he couldn’t handle this situation in a worse way that he’s handling it.”