Now is the time to see if Dana White is all fart and no poo.
We've seen a lot of homophobic slurs thrown around in the UFC under Dana White's watch.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum drop the 'maricon' word multiple times. UFC middleweight king Michael Bisping called Luke Rockhold a faggot after winning the belt and 'the Count' was actually called the slur himself by welterweight contender Jorge Masvidal this week. Nate Diaz also got in a lot of trouble for calling Bryan Carraway, 'the biggest fag in the world' in a tweet.
Of course, let's not forget that Uncle Dana has a history with the offensive term too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjAHM5osXlM
The problem was brought to light again when the promotion's biggest ever superstar, Conor McGregor, was caught using it backstage at UFC Gdansk.
By repeating the word multiple times to training partner Artem Lobov, coupled with his antics from the crowd, McGregor managed to get a lot more people discussing a fairly underwhelming card, but for all the wrong reasons.
https://twitter.com/fuufnf/status/921823200031453185
Once the poster boy of the sport drops the word, there's clearly a problem. With the UFC being the market leaders, White knows that something must be done to combat this pressing issue. He told
TMZ Sports that he intends on tackling the problem, although he didn't specify how.
"We've had a problem with that lately. It's been more than him, we've had a problem with that. It's a thing you have to educate people on and I've had my history with it myself. So it's definitely a problem, and it's something we need to focus on."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WoAdkuX_nw
McGregor has since apologised for using the word during an appearance on Irish TV and White believes there is nothing more he can really do.
"What else is he gonna do? If you apologise and that's not enough, what else can you do, you know what I mean? You can donate money, you can. . . whatever. I don't know."
It will be interesting to see what the UFC has planned to try to solve this problem. This isn't a great look for them, especially considering they have several fighters on their roster who are openly gay, including women's bantamweight queen Amanda Nunes.
