I've been in more conversations with people, “Hey, who do you think’s going to headline
Madison Square Garden?”
You know, one thing about Dana White is he's not a poker player and he does not bluff.
I mean, he does and you can go back and look at his history.
I remember when Dana was making these claims and people said, “Oh, he's crazy and he's
just being a promoter,” and sure enough, he'd follow through on his word and it would
happen.
I mean, from the growth of the sport to national television deals to publicly traded companies
coming in as sponsors of the company, everything that he ever said happened.
And he said, “We are going to give you a blowout main event for Madison Square Garden.”
Now, the one reason I offer you that is because I'm not confident that the card isn't great
the way it is.
I'm not confident that if push comes to shove you elevate Diaz and Poirier to a five-round
fight, make them the main event, and everybody goes home happy.
I'm not confident that I think that works.
I just think Dana is going to do—I think he's going to do something great and special.
And when you come out and you start to speculate what that is, we did all commonly believe
that that would be revealed in New York last week at the press conference between Conor
and Khabib.
We believed that because they were in New York, because Madison Square Garden, for those
of you that are geographically impaired, happens to be in New York, and it was a press conference
where you would announce major press.
So we had that conclusion.
But when Dana didn't do it, we all looked at that and go, “Well, yeah, of course he
didn't do it.”
Why would he do it today?
Why would he do anything that could overshadow the biggest fight in the sport’s history?
Why would he do anything today for a card that’s seven weeks away when he's promoting
a card that's three weeks away?
Once again, Dana gets it right.
Dana did it exactly right.
All of our predictions were wrong, but we should have been wrong.
He should have announced it that day.
Didn't matter if they were in New York.
He had other business that day.
Once again, Dana got it right.
I'm not sure—and tickets go on sale tomorrow for the MSG card, so could we find out very
quickly?
Could we find out?
You know, I might be wrong.
I think tickets might go on sale today.
I'll have to look that up.
But the point is, the point is they're running out of time.
If they want to announce their main event in conjunction with an on-sale date, what’s
to say they do?
What’s to say that the point I made a moment ago isn't spot on, which is the card’s pretty
damn good the way it is.
What’s to say that they don’t wait until you're fading to black and rolling the credits
on October 6th where you have more eyeballs from this market than you're ever going to
have before and you put it on the back end of that show?
If you guys will remember, that's how they rolled out the Brock Lesnar fight, Brock Lesnar’s
return at UFC 200.
There was a pay-per-view going on.
They had some B-roll put together and out of nowhere, boom, he's back and Brock Lesnar’s
face pops up.
It was a cool dramatic way to do it.
Didn't even have an opponent announced.
So what’s to say they're not going to do that on October 6th when the MSG card isn't
for another month?
That's more than enough time to build anticipation and hype for a retail product that's going
on sale 30 days later, roughly, and not get in the way of the product that is being sold
on October 6th.
So, in conclusion, I'm sticking with my Jon Jones theory though I will fully admit as
each day goes by it gets weaker and weaker.
I just am forced with the fact that they said it's going to be a major fight.
Diaz and Poirier is an anticipated fight, so that's our bar.
It's got to be above that and I don't know anybody with any free time, with any spots
open on their dance card, that could fill in and be a bigger and better and more anticipated
fight than Poirier versus Diaz.
I don't know of one.
I couldn’t offer you a guess.
I've heard guesses that I find ridic—I heard Georges St-Pierre.
That's ridiculous to me.
I wouldn't even come to you guys with that.
Georges doesn’t work that way and he doesn’t fill in short notice.
Daniel Cormier sitting out one pay-per-view.
Now, he's being speculated.
“Hey, why is he sitting at home?
What’s he getting ready for?
What’s he training for?”
As much as I want to laugh at that, I don’t have anything better to offer you.
Maybe the guy that made the call to me and offered me that maybe he's on to something.
Maybe [00:04:37] is on to something.
I don't know.
But it sure has from a marketing standpoint been fun to not know.
It's been to speculate.
It's been fun to guess.
I think we've all got a kick out of it.
I don't think you can run a business that way.
I don't know if we're going to be in the same spot again time after time.
This is the new promotion, “Ah, we know the card and we're not going to tell you what
it is!
Ha ha ha!”
No, I don't think so.
But I think for this one time, for this first time, I think it's been great.
I do.
I really think that it's been fun.