Opinion: Definitely Not Mad Dana’s Bad Day of Lying

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media. People lie, and they do it all the time. It’s such a cultural reflex that many people don’t even realize they’re lying while actively doing so. Some people lie more than others, whether it’s because they’re pathological or because they’ve simply chosen a profession in which lying is an integral component. Fight promoters lie more than most folks as a matter of vocation. Fight promoting is still fundamentally selling a product, and as a promoter, you’re most successful when you can convince consumers who are lukewarm or indifferent to said product that it’s worth consuming. Every fighter is the best; every fight is the one we’ve waited for our whole lives; every season of “The Ultimate Fighter” is the craziest; and your vacuum doesn’t lose suction and it does the dishes. In many ways, UFC President Dana White is a professional liar, a successful and practiced one. This is why it’s surprising to watch him do such a transparent, laughable, rotten job of lying when it comes to Conor McGregor’s “retirement.” White lies, and I don’t have to “prove it” to you. In 2016, this may be accepted as common fact and not require citation. Instead of enumerating a laundry list of past lies, just consider this headline. Long story short: White OK’d Renan Barao to replace Dominick Cruz at UFC 148 without telling Urijah Faber, so it could be announced live on air during the live-to-air season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” He then basically said, “I lied to Urijah. We didn’t want to get scooped by some Internet dork. We wanted to break some news on the show.” This man is a duplicitous crazy person. He repeatedly acts ignorant to or deliberately misrepresents things as serious as UFC fighters’ histories with domestic violence despite him famously saying, “You don’t bounce back from putting your hands on a woman.” However, White is a carnival barker in a pair of Converse, so people expect him to be less than genuine. Typically, though, White’s lies are dumb, common promoter lies, which is why people normally make fun of him for being hyperbolic (“Fighter X is the best pound-for-pound fighter now!”) rather than being petty and political (His re-telling of Georges St. Pierre’s career) or outright sleazy (Mr. “Fighters Get All the Reebok Money!”). Again, White is experienced and practiced as a flim-flam man, and he’s bombastic, profane and often even witty. Even his relationship with the truth is indicted by his very job; he usually can either put on a brave face and ably deflect hard questions and criticisms or say something wild and shift the narrative. During Wednesday’s damage control media car wash, which included TV appearances with Colin Cowherd and Jim Rome, instead of coming off like a capable con artist, White sounded more like a jilted lover in regards to the Conor McGregor situation. There was some classic Dana deflection. Without mentioning her by name — a White staple unless he’s saying awful things about Loretta Hunt — the UFC president refuted Charly Arnolt’s tweet that McGregor wanted $10 million for UFC 200 and called her a “hack” guilty of click baiting. It was not unlike the stance he took in January, when Jeremy Botter reported that there was a growing rift between White and McGregor. White responded by calling Botter a “weirdo” and a “scumbag.” Of course, the nature of Botter’s reporting brings us to the heart of White’s awful Wednesday exhibition in dishonesty. There were lots of doozies, but I want to focus on three of them in particular.“It’s not a money issue … Never, ever was this about money. It was never about money.” Oh, you mean it’s never about money for the sudden millionaire fighter who talks constantly about how poor he used to be, how much money he wants and how he’s going to quit as soon as he has made stacks? The guy whose most famous pantomimes are making it rain and rubbing his thumb against his index and middle fingers? McGregor is the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s biggest star and White is out here acting like we’ve never heard the man speak before. McGregor released a statement via Facebook on Thursday saying he …

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