Ariel Halwani was determined to stand his ground and refused to let Dana White push him around. Before UFC 300, there were a lot of social media experts and former fighters who criticized White. They said the card would not be exciting and might fall flat on its face. Well, following the fight weekend, we can confidently say that such speculations had no basis in truth whatsoever, and the UFC president made sure to clap back at these ‘so-called experts’.
Dana White uploaded a montage video of all the naysayers on Instagram and then revealed the records that UFC 300 broke. It was quite evident that this was White’s way of getting back at people who had doubted him or his organization.
Ariel Helwani was also in the video since he initially mentioned that the card felt “thrown together.” However, the UFC commentator defended himself by sharing clips of him supporting the milestone event on his IG story.
“I guess these didn’t make the cut”
Ariel Helwani shared two screenshots of articles that claim The MMA Hour host defended Dana White. Naturally, he felt disappointed that the UFC CEO only took his criticism to heart and not his praise. Then again, the pair don’t really have the best relationship with each other, and there was no love lost with this latest interaction.
On the other hand, Aljamain Sterling was all praises for Dana White. Despite knowing about the strained relationship between the commentator and White, Sterling could not help but appreciate the UFC CEO, when he met Helwani for a chat.
Aljamain Sterling tells Ariel Helwani how much he appreciates Dana White talking positively about him
Aljamain Sterling made his UFC featherweight debut at UFC 300 against Calvin Katter and won dominantly. The fight left Dana White quite impressed, and he left no stone unturned in praising Sterling.
In an interview with Ariel Helwani for The MMA Hour, Sterling spoke about how White appreciated him, saying:
“I thought that was for once really nice of him….He could’ve easily just been like, ‘Well, we all know how a Sterling fight goes.’ and then people would’ve just s*it all over me again. I thank him for that”
Interestingly, Sterling’s impressive debut was the one area where Helwani and White could agree with each other. In fact, the UFC commentator was also quite vocal about how remarkable Sterling’s performance was against a guy like Calvin Kattar.
