Dana White had a furious reaction to an incident that could’ve cost the promotion a blockbuster main event.
As has been the case ahead of UFC Perth this weekend, fight cancellations are an unfortunate aspect of combat sports that can’t always be prevented.
There have been some massive examples in the UFC where a fight that fans are counting down the hours for gets pulled from an event on late notice.
This was famously the case at UFC 200, where Brock Lesnar was called in to bolster the card following a series of difficulties regarding the main event.
One of the fighters that was originally set to headline this landmark event had another one of the biggest fights of his career encounter potential jeopardy with fight night being within touching distance.
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Dana White was stunned after Daniel Cormier tripped and fell over at the UFC 226 press conference
In July of 2018, the UFC brought a big card to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas to headline the promotion’s international fight week.
The UFC 226 co-main event between Derrick Lewis and Francis Ngannou was labelled “an abomination” by Dana White, but the headliner delivered an iconic moment.
Daniel Cormier knocked out Stipe Miocic at heavyweight to become a simultaneous two-weight world champion.
While ‘DC’ stunned his opponent in the first round, getting to the Octagon proved to be a more difficult task than expected for the challenger.
The end of the press conference on fight week saw Cormier trip and fall over shortly after he got out of his chair to walk off the stage.
He was helped up to his feet and limped away, with White looking on in complete disbelief at what he had just witnessed.
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Daniel Cormier eased fans concerns shortly after his unfortunate fall
With fans worrying that the main event of UFC 226 could now be in jeopardy following Daniel Cormier’s fall, an update was issued shortly after the incident.
Brett Okamoto reported that Cormier wasn’t happy after someone had placed a speaker next to his chair, but there wasn’t a concern that this would stop the bout from going ahead.
Famously, a similar incident that happened just several months before had caused one of the most highly anticipated title fights to fall through.
Tony Ferguson withdrew from his matchup with Khabib Nurmagomedov after tripping over a wire backstage while doing media, with fans not believing the news at first due to it being announced on April Fool’s Day.