Dana White Thinks Giga Chikadze Is ‘Badass,’ TUF Is Here To Stay And He Doesn’t Care About Jake Paul

Dana White was impressed with Giga Chikadze’s performance.

White, the UFC president, had a few takeaways from Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night, also labeled as UFC Vegas 35, like Chikadze’s knockout win over Edson Barboza, and he announced The Ultimate Fighter will stay with a one-season per year schedule.

“So badass,” White said of Chikadze. “I’ve been geeking out over this fight for weeks. That was some high-level s**t we saw from those two. I love the fact that he wants to fight [Max Holloway], we’ll figure that out.”

Chikadze is undefeated in the UFC, and by defeating Barboza, he earned his seventh victory in a row.

After earning the victory in his first main event, he expressed the desire of being a replacement fighter for the featherweight title bout between Alexandre Volkanovski and Brian Ortega. If not that, he also called out former featherweight champion Holloway.

Also Saturday night, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) returned where Ricky Turcios battled it out with Brady Hiestand. Turcios came out on top via split decision.

TUF has ran for 29 seasons, but was recently on a three-year hiatus. The show is to find new blood for the promotion.

“We’re doing one a year, we’ll see what the landscape looks like at the time we start doing it, and we’ll figure out who the next fighters and coaches are,” White said. “As long as I’m here, that show will probably never go away. It works!”

White also talked about the boxing matchup between Jake Paul and Tyron Woodley, which took place on Sunday – a day after UFC’s events. He said he’s not bothered by any of Paul’s threats.

“Get in line, there’s plenty of people who would like to assault me,” White said. “It doesn’t bother me, this is the business we’re in. This isn’t the ‘nice guy’ business. It’s just a part of this game, it’s all good.”