Dana White has poured cold water on the possibility of UFC adopting Trevor Wittman’s glove design.
After years of Wittman stating that UFC has been reluctant to make an agreement to use his Onyx gloves, which the noted coach of lightweight champion Justin Gaethje insists will reduce eye pokes and other glove-related issues, he stated on a recent episode of “The JRE MMA Show” with Joe Rogan that UFC executive Hunter Campbell had once again ignited negotiations.
White was asked about those discussions during Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 279 post-fight news conference at Meta APEX in Las Vegas, and painted a much more grim picture about the situation. He said he’s pushed hard to strike a deal in the past, but UFC felt the financial demands from the other side were unrealistic.
“We’ve been talking to Trevor for years,” White told MMA Junkie. “Rashad Evans, whom I love and respect, came to me and said, ‘Hey, listen: I’m invested in this thing. We think we have a great product here and I would love to introduce our glove that Trevor built.’ All those guys are like, ‘Trevor’s a genius, he makes these bags and these gloves.’ So we looked at it all and I literally told my finance team, ‘Get this deal done. I don’t care what it takes. Get the deal done.’
“They wanted like $100 million for the glove. You know how many f*cking gloves you’ve got to sell to make $100 million? It’s impossible. So the deal never happened, but I told my team and Denny, the girl who runs that department is a brilliant woman. Brilliant. She came back to me like cross-eyed like, ‘I can’t get a deal done with these guys.’ That deal should’ve been done a few year ago. I wanted to do that for Rashad. So we’ll see.”
Although White seemingly left the door open for further conversation with Wittman and his team, he outright admitted that he’s not optimistic a middle ground can be found to bring the equipment into the octagon in an official capacity.
“I am not confident at all,” White said. “We’ll fight in the Colosseum before that deal gets done. It’s almost the same money.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dana White: Trevor Wittman’s team wanted $100 million for UFC gloves
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