Dana White has taken back what he said about Farid Basharat. At the UFC 333 post-fight press conference, the UFC CEO said he never meant to suggest the undefeated bantamweight had turned down fights. He also admitted his earlier answer had put a cloud over a fighter who hadn’t done anything to deserve it. MMA Mania first reported the apology.
The mess started after UFC Edmonton. Basharat had just fought out his contract, and the promotion didn’t offer him a new one. That decision came despite a 16-0 record, a 7-0 run inside the Octagon and a spot in the bantamweight rankings. When White was asked to explain, he gave a general theory of why fighters don’t get re-signed: “either guys aren’t good to deal with, or the matchmakers don’t want to deal with them, which could be turning down fights or whatever the reasoning is.” Then he added the line that did the real damage: “If you’re 16-0 with seven wins in the UFC and don’t get re-signed, there’s definitely a reason.”
He said that while talking about a specific 16-0 fighter with seven UFC wins, and there’s only one person that describes. Anyone listening would have taken it as a verdict on Basharat.
Basharat pushed back hard. He denied ever declining a fight and said White’s comments could hurt his reputation with other promotions. That’s a fair worry for a free agent who’s about to go shopping for a contract. As proof that he was easy to work with, he pointed to the injuries and the extreme weight discrepancies he accepted during his UFC tenure.
White said Basharat’s response video showed up on his own Instagram, and his reaction was that he didn’t mean to do that to the kid. “I wasn’t talking about him specifically,” White said, explaining that he’d been listing reasons fighters in general don’t get re-signed. He also addressed Basharat’s complaint about career damage directly: “in no way, shape or form did I try to do that.”
He went further and said the split carries no bad blood. “I have no problems with him whatsoever, personally or professionally, and I’m sure with his record and what he’s got going on, he’ll get signed somewhere,” White said. Asked whether the 29-year-old could ever come back, White wouldn’t rule it out. “I wouldn’t say in the near future,” he said. “We just let him go. But I’m not saying it’s not a possibility that he could come back to the UFC.”
Here’s my take. White deserves some credit for correcting the record on a microphone, since that’s the same kind of setting where he raised the doubt in the first place. A ranked bantamweight with zero losses shouldn’t have to answer questions from rival promoters about whether he ghosts matchmakers, and now he won’t have to. But the apology fixes Basharat’s reputation without explaining the decision. MMA Mania chalked it up to the promotion’s appetite for violence over wins. White still owes us an answer about what that “definitely a reason” was, now that he’s cleared Basharat of the only specific one he offered.
