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Darren Rovell has challenged Dana White to a debate after the UFC president referred to him as a “dips**t” for questioning Amanda Nunes’ marketability.
The feud between Dana White and sports business analyst Darren Rovell regarding Amanda Nunes’ marketability can be traced to a few years back. Then-UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes had just won the UFC women’s featherweight title by dethroning Cris Cyborg via first round KO at UFC 232 in December 2018.
Darren Rovell subsequently tweeted and wrote blog posts wherein he emphasized that by beating Ronda Rousey in 2016 and Cris Cyborg in 2018, Amanda Nunes had singlehandedly killed the two biggest draws in women’s MMA. He highlighted that this was “brutally damaging to UFC”.
Rovell opined that Nunes had nowhere near the drawing power of Rousey, Cyborg, or even fighters like Miesha Tate, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, and Paige VanZant. He also noted that Nunes herself had admitted in a past interview that she wasn't the kind of women's MMA fighter that the UFC usually promotes.
As seen in the video below, Dana White hit back at Darren Rovell at the UFC 232 post-fight press conference back in December 2018 for questioning Amanda Nunes’ marketability.
After Amanda Nunes’ second-round submission loss against Julianna Pena at UFC 269, Dana White took another jibe at Darren Rovell. During the UFC 269 post-fight press conference, White explained how a potential big-money super-fight between Nunes and free agent Kayla Harrison – who was in attendance and acknowledged on-screen during UFC 269 – had fallen apart.
The UFC president noted that irrespective of certain people’s opinions regarding Amanda Nunes’ marketability, the fact remains that had she won at UFC 269, it’d have set up a “mega million-dollar fight" between her and Kayla Harrison. He specifically named Darren Rovell, calling him out for questioning Nunes’ marketability. White stated:
“Yeah, these are those things, man. For like a Kayla Harrison, the Amanda Nunes fight was huge. I mean, if they would’ve faced off, it would’ve been a massive, you know, mega million-dollar fight. I know the dips**t there. What’s his name? The dips**t that thinks he knows about this business; Rovell, Darren Rovell, yeah. Dips**t Darren Rovell said that Amanda Nunes, we were scre**d, she could never be a star, and all these other things. Let me tell you what – If Amanda Nunes had won tonight, the Kayla Harrison fight would be one of the biggest fights that you would’ve ever seen. You know, stay out of our business, dips**t. You know nothing.”
Watch Dana White sound off on Darren Rovell during the UFC 269 post-fight press conference in the video below:
Darren Rovell, on his part, posted several tweets regarding the UFC president and has challenged Dana White to a debate. Rovell also addressed these developments in a blog post.
One of Rovell's most prominent tweets read as follows:
“Dana is really great at taking shots at 1 in the morning. He might have the potty mouth this forum applauds, but I’ll debate him in any forum on this topic with data and crush him. Name time and place.”
A resilient Amanda Nunes promises fans of a return after UFC 269 loss
Amanda Nunes’ post-fight octagon interview at UFC 269 saw the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion and current UFC women’s featherweight champion suggest that she did expect Julianna Pena to be a tough opponent. ‘The Lioness’ expressed her respect for ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ and hailed her as a “warrior”.
Furthermore, Amanda Nunes revealed that she’s been working on a few things in training and will continue to do so until they are fixed. Nunes indicated that she intends to get back into the gym and noted that she will return to the octagon.
Presently, it’s unclear as to whether or not she’ll choose to face Pena in an immediate rematch or fight another opponent before trying to reclaim her bantamweight belt.
