UFC president Dana White on video of him slapping his wife: 'Don't anybody defend me'

UFC president Dana White asked on Wednesday for people to stop defending him for his actions on New Year’s Eve where video showed him slapping his wife after she slapped him at a nightclub in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

"Don't defend me. Don't anybody defend me," White said Wednesday when he met with reporters during media day ahead of the promotion’s event on Saturday in Las Vegas. "There's no reason to even try to defend me. And I don't want any of our fighters in this position where they feel like they have to — unless they want to come out and say he's an [expletive], whatever their feelings are about this."

This was the second time White spoke publicly about the incident, the first being an interview with TMZ last week after the website posted the video. 

But the silence from the UFC’s parent company Endeavor, and its broadcast partner, ESPN, has caused some outrage. Neither company has issued a statement since the news first broke. Such lack of comments led one group, the California Legislative Women's Caucus, to write an open letter to Endeavor head Ari Emanuel calling for White to be removed as president of the UFC.

“What should the repercussions be? You tell me. I take 30 days off? How does that hurt me?” White said Wednesday. "I told you guys when we were going through COVID, COVID could last 10 years, I could sit it out and— you know what I mean? What would be the problem? It’s much like COVID, actually. Me leaving hurts the company, hurts my employees, hurts the fighters. It doesn’t hurt me. I could have left in 2016. I don’t know. Do I need to reflect? No, I don’t need to reflect. The next morning when I woke up — you know what I mean? I’ve been against this. I’ve owned this. I’m telling you that I’m wrong.

“But listen, we’ve had plenty of discussions internally, with Ari, ESPN. Nobody’s happy. Nobody’s happy about this. Neither am I. But it happened, and I have to deal with it. And what is my punishment? Here’s my punishment: I’ve got to walk around for however long I live — is it 10.4 years, or is it another 25 years? — and this is how I’m labeled now. My other punishment is that, I’m sure a lot of people, whether it be media, fighters, friends, acquaintances, who had respect for me, might not have respect for me now."

White, 53, said he and his wife have been friends for 40 years and married for the last 27 years. They have three children together. Both Dana and Anne White issued statements when the story initially broke that this was the first time anything like this has ever occurred between them. White echoed that again Wednesday.

White said in 2014, and in years since, that anyone who hits a woman can never bounce back from that action. That sentiment was brought to the forefront again Wednesday during White's media session.

"You don't bounce back from it," White said. "You wake up every day and try to be better than you were yesterday, and you make sure that that never happens again. Whatever steps you have to take to make sure you’re not in that situation and that it never happens again, that’s what I need to do. It’s a fact. There are a couple things in life that you don’t bounce back from, and this is one of them."

The incident arose shortly before White's newest venture, the Power Slap League, was set to premiere on TBS. The network pushed back the debut a week from Jan. 11 to Jan 18.

"There is no good or bad timing for what I did," White said. "There's irony. Very ironic. But there's no good or bad timing for what I did on New Year's Eve."

By Mark La Monica

mark.lamonica@newsday.comLaMonicaMark

Mark La Monica is a deputy sports editor at Newsday. He also covers mixed martial arts.