Dana White named 'annoying' UFC fighter he was glad to see get knocked out
Dana White was glad to see a former UFC fighter getting knocked out because he annoyed him so much.
White has been UFC's president since 2001 and played an integral part in their growth into global powerhouse.
Before that, he worked as a manager and represented both Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell, who were pioneers for the sport and went on to become light heavyweight champions.
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Ortiz and Liddell had a rivalry in the cage and fought three times, including twice in the UFC.
But White also had a feud with Ortiz, even getting into a fist fight on a plane after a play-around turned serious.
Liddell beat Ortiz twice in UFC before losing a trilogy encounter years later in 2018.
But when Liddell knocked Ortiz out in the Octagon in Las Vegas, White enjoyed it very much and even took the Ice Man's gear as a memento.
Speaking in an interview, White said: “Nobody has p****d me off more than Tito Ortiz, I was gonna f**k him up and make him look stupid.
“When Chuck Liddell knocked Tito Ortiz out, that was my favourite that has ever happened in UFC history.
"I told Chuck ‘I want your gloves and your trunks that you beat the snot out of him in.
“I put them in a glass case and hung them up in my house.”
The animosity between the duo was so strong that they agreed to a 2007 boxing bout which was going to be sanctioned by the Nevada Athletic Commission.
However, Ortiz never showed up to the weigh-ins at the Ultimate Fighter gym and so contest never happened.
More recently, the UFC Hall of Famer spoke about possibility making amends with White at some point, saying that "life is too short".
“I don’t want to say no," he told Chris Van Vliet in 2022.
"I think I’ll give that to Dana to say no.
"I think I made a mistake a while back saying I’ll never fight in the UFC, and it came back to bite me in the a**.
“It is what it is. I think he told me that. I wish we could get over the hard feelings.
"That’s life. Life is too short to hate.”
Topics: Dana White, UFC
Josh Lawless