“I was a little bit heartbroken… But it’s okay. Even when I first heard the news that I was promised I was going to get the next title shot, I was skeptical. You can’t always believe what you hear. Things change so often in this sport, you’d be a fool if you believed everything that came out. So I’m not surprised that it happened. But I was pretty sad about it.”
Those are the words of UFC welterweight Rory MacDonald, culled from his appearance on this week’s edition of MMAFighting.com’s “The MMA Hour.” It’s a shame that any fighter has to be skeptical when promised a title shot, but that’s the reality of the UFC: You can’t trust the management. While the Fertitta Brothers, Joe Silva, and Sean Shelby tend to keep their mouths shut, it’s the figurehead who ruins it for the rest of them.
Dana White, the president and frontman of the UFC, has a bad habit of leading with his mouth. He makes a lot of promises, and I can’t remember the last time he kept one. Whether it’s title shots, fighters being barred, or not raising the prices of consecutive UFC pay-per-view events, the list of promises the man has made but broken is long enough to make Liam Neeson insecure. It’s gotten so bad that making fun of White’s hypocrisy is a common pass-time amongst the MMA Twittersphere. When anything that the man promises comes to fruition, it comes as far too large of a surprise. This isn’t good, especially when it has reached the point that your employees don’t trust their senior management.
What can the UFC do to fix this? Well, for starters, it needs to reign Dana White in. Trot him out for big announcements and things of that nature, but leave the decision-making to someone less impulsive. Leave the talk of title shots up to Joe Silva and Sean Shelby, and don’t let the big-talking Bostonian say anything about a chance at a belt until either of the two matchmakers have a signed bout agreement in hand. Essentially, turn him into a puppet. Sure, it may take away some of White’s abrasive charm, but it’s his impulse control issues that have helped get the UFC into the position it’s in now: With class action lawsuits related to predatory business practices being filed and with an increasingly vocal contingent of unhappy fighters.
Rory MacDonald’s complaints on this week’s “MMA Hour” are symptomatic of a problem that has torpedoed countless businesses: A workforce that can no longer trust their management. The UFC brass needs to find a way to rectify this situation quickly, or 2014 will look like a cakewalk compared to the year to come.
