Dana White Responds To Stephen Espinoza - "Isn't That Creepy Little Fuckin Goofball A Lawyer? Does He Not Know What Disparagement Means?"
One of the details about UFC 249 that seemed to ruffle a lot of feathers and rub a lot of people - particularly those in the media - the wrong way this past week was the fact that all fighters, employees of the company, and even the media members down there in Jacksonville themselves were required to sign a non-disparagement clause in order to attend the events of fight week. It can be read below....
Showtime Exec Stephen Espinoza, who you'll remember best from his role as the LITTLE WEASEL at the Mayweather/McGregor press conferences, immediately started taking shots at Dana White and the UFC for this, and proceeded to dedicate his entire night to trashing the event from afar, retweeting just about anyone who pointed out when something didn't meet protocol or someone pulled their mask down off their face....
As a 21-year-old community college dropout, I don't know anything about these contracts or non-disparagement clauses at all in the slightest. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this sorta thing either. I would assume that one side probably has some very legitimate and important points to make, and so does the other. Probably should be some sort've slander/disparagement thing in the contract to save face, maybe it shouldn't be worded the way it is. I have NO IDEA.
That being said, Stephen Espinoza needs to mind his own fuckin business here. He comes off like one of these broken-brained people who thinks Dana White is sitting in his war room every day personally writing up contracts to try to fuck his fighters out of as much of their civil liberties as possible. I know I'll be called a bootlicker for this - but he's not! He's just not! You don't have to get so angry little man!
Honestly, I highly doubt Dana even know about this clause in the contract until it became an issue, much like the whole Barstool situation a few years back. Somewhere a legal team drafted that up to make sure the company doesn't get sued off their ass, thinking it was boiler-plate or whatever, and now it's a lead story and we've got weasels chirping from the peanut gallery about it.
Conor really was so right about this dude from the jump…
I've now spoken to fighters on the card, staff that worked the event, and multiple members of the broadcast team at this point, and EVERYONE across the board has been very complimentary about all of the safety precautions the UFC took to pull this thing off and are continuing to administer to make sure Wednesday and next Saturday go off without a hitch. These people all went out of their way to mention that to me in friendly, off-air conversations, with nothing to gain from saying so!
I've also got nothing to benefit from telling you guys that, despite some those who will undoubtedly assume I'm saying this as a suck up! It's simply how people who are ACTUALLY THERE feel about the whole situation, though, unlike what a lot of Twitter will tell you right now.
Check out today's episode of the podcast with Megan Olivi to hear a little bit more about that…
What a little goofball Espinoza is. Hilarious.