UFC president Dana White has ripped into streaming giant YouTube for taking down an interview with friend and former US leader Donald Trump, while defending the right to free speech.
The Full Send podcast recently visited the former Republican leader, and uploaded a clip of their chat which received 6 million views in a day on YouTube before being taken down out of nowhere by the site itself.
The decision to do so was widely-criticized, with Trump asking: "Whatever happened to free speech in our country?".
And in his own podcast appearance on Logan Paul's Impaulsive channel, Trump supporter White joined the chorus of disapproval branding the move – allegedly made due to Trump raising the subject of alleged fraud in the general election that saw Democrat rival Joe Biden succeed him in late 2020 – "disgusting" and "scary".
"It’s insane," White claimed to Paul. "Why would they do that? Why would they take that, what was bad about that interview? If you look at all the s**t that’s on the f**king internet, that’s what you’re going to take down? [Are you] f**king kidding me?"
"The nuttiest of the nutty are entitled to have an opinion in America," White pointed out. "They can have an opinion and you as another American can agree with it or not agree with it."
"The fact that Trump’s podcast with Full Send got taken down is f**king disgusting and more importantly is scary," added White, who invited Trump to UFC 264 in July last year where Conor McGregor was beaten by Dustin Poirier in a trilogy bout after breaking his leg.
Though White has continually clashed with his novice boxer brother Jake over fighter pay in the UFC, the elite MMA championship's head honcho did not close the door to Logan stepping in its octagon one day elsewhere in their interview.
"What about any other fight?" Logan asked, after White threw cold water on the possibility of cruiserweight Jake taking on lightweight UFC legend McGregor in a crossover bout. "Like if I wanted to do a UFC fight, is that something you'd entertain?"
"Who would you want to fight?" White fired back. "You have wrestling and boxing. Did you ever do jiu-jitsu? I'm not saying no. I'm not saying no," White stressed.
While White might be open to Logan, who has a 1-0 boxing record complimented by an exhibition bout with all-time great Floyd Mayweather last year, trying his luck in the UFC, he dodged a question on whether trans fighters would ever be signed by his promotion and gave Paul a quick history lesson.
"It happened in our sport," White began explaining. "There was a fighter named Fallon Fox, who was a male fighter who became a woman."
"He was out there beating the s**t out of women, left and right. And then he finally ran into the wrong woman and she beat his a*s," White continued, before being interrupted.
"She beat her a*s," Paul corrected him. "Yeah," White said, laughing off his error.
Over on Twitter, Jake Paul launched into White for claiming that he is too big to take on McGregor.
"I’m never completely closed off to anything," White first said on the prospect of the pair facing off. "I used to say that about things, but I don’t say that anymore. ‘Cause you never know what could happen."
"He shouldn’t even be fighting Conor McGregor," White suggested, before asking Logan about his brother's height and weight.
"These guys are f**king huge. He’s huge, his brother is huge. What’s your brother, 6’1, 210 [lbs]? Conor McGregor is 145 – 155lbs. … there are weight classes for a reason," White highlighted.
Addressing this, Jake tweeted: "Dana White is begging for Diaz and Conor to fight for a third time."
"They have fought at 170lbs in both their fights. I will fight Conor at 175lbs, no problem. Stop making excuses, p*ssies," Jake finished.