Dana White Says ‘Fight Fixing’ Is Now A ‘Huge Concern’ For UFC
The investigation on James Krause and his UFC fighter is still ongoing.
UFC President Dana White has changed his mind on how he feels about illegal gambling.
This past weekend, White said that he wasn’t worried “at all” about the ongoing betting investigation including former fighter and current coach James Krause. Now, however, in a recent sit-down interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, he changed his tone.
“Huge concern,” White said of “fight fixing.”
“Now it is. Now that there’s an investigation and it could be possible that it happened. Now it’s something that we really have to—
“You know, we’ve always told fighters—as all the gambling stuff started to heat up—‘Stay away from gambling. Obviously, don’t—’ I mean, do you know how stupid you have to be to get involved in something like that? Everybody—it gets caught. You always get caught. And all they have to do is follow the money. Follow the money, you know? But there’s a lot of people in prison for really dumb stuff. People really are that stupid and, you know, things are gonna happen.
“And if this is all true, and this investigation ends up that this really happened people are going to go to prison. People aren’t going to go to jail, people are going to go to prison. And hopefully everybody else is watching and taking notes.”
Dana White on fight fixing in MMA: Huge concern. Now it is.pic.twitter.com/MWINlS2A9X
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) December 13, 2022
The commotion started back at UFC Vegas 64.
Darrick Minner lost to Shayilan Nuerdanbieke in a suspicious featherweight bout. Nuerdanbieke finished Minner in the first round at 1:07 minutes, but it was what happened leading up to the fight that made it questionable.
Minner was always the underdog, but the odds shifted dramatically hours leading up to the fight due to a leaked rumor that Minner was injured. Nuerdanbieke’s odds went from –220 to –420, which bettors put heavy money on.
In a separate interview with TSN’s Aaron Bronsteter, White confirmed that all Krause-trained fighters have been banned from competition in the promotion until the investigation concludes.