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What's the story?
Dana White is coming off a 'nightmarish' experience from dealing with Cris Cyborg and the jury is still out regarding the claims made by both White and Cyborg.
There is a section of the MMA community (a large one, apparently) that is painting Dana White as the villain. Cyborg has gotten a fair share of the criticism herself for her unceremonious departure.
In a recent interview with MMAFighting, UFC Women's Flyweight Champion Valentina Shevchenko spoke about White and stated that she always found him to be polite and nice.
She gave White props for managing the biggest MMA promotion in the world while also adding that she hasn't been paying attention to the war of words between Cyborg and White.
In case you didn't know...
Cyborg fought her final fight for the UFC against Felicia Spencer at UFC 240, after which her relationship with White completely broke down. White claimed that Cyborg was scared to take on Amanda Nunes and has always ducked away from the rematch.
The Brazilian fighter's social media team put out a doctored video of a backstage interaction between herself and White, in which the UFC head honcho was portrayed in poor light. Cyborg later came out and apologized to White for the video.
As things stand, Cyborg is done with the UFC with many promotions currently negotiating for her signature.
The heart of the matter
Valentina Shevchenko shared her views on Dana White during a chat with MMAFighting. She had nothing but good things to say about her boss.
“With the situation she had with Dana White recently, I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to what happened between them. But I can say that from what I know of Dana, he’s a very good person; he’s a very polite and kind person. Since very early on, he’s always been worried about the fighters.
"If he says, ‘I will take care of you’, you can be sure he will take care of you because he’s trying to make life for the fighters in the UFC good. [He wants UFC fighters] to have everything because UFC is the biggest organization of mixed-martial arts in the world. That’s not just him, that’s everyone that’s involved in the UFC; their treatment of fighters is unique—I haven’t received this [treatment] in any other organization.”
Shevchenko was asked about whether she had ever thought of facing Cris Cyborg. 'Bullet' claimed that she never considered the fight as they are in different weight classes.
“I never was thinking about it because we’re in two totally different weight classes. We’ve commonly trained together, I’ve always considered her more of sparring partner and a friend. It’s never been in my mind to make that fight happen.” H/t Credit: BloodyElbow
What's next?
Valentina Shevchenko will defend the UFC Women's Flyweight title against Liz Carmouche on Saturday, August 10th, 2019 at UFC Fight Night 156.
