UFC vs. Sherdog: The Story Behind the Feud

In the wake of Sherdog’s Loretta Hunt article that sent UFC pres Dana White into a tizzy, thus creating the Vlog heard round the world, sports-radio jock Carmichael Dave tried to set the record straight (once and for all).

Dana was interviewed on April 4, 2009 on the Sacramento-based radio show for about thirty minutes, and covered a lot of ground. Obviously the much-publicized video rant blasting Sherdog editor Loretta Hunt was the main topic of interest, so the host went right for it.  For those of you hermits that haven’t heard, Dana has been criticized by most news media outlets for his f-bomb laced tirade directed at Hunt, for an article she wrote a week ago on Sherdog.  The article was about the new UFC policy banning fighter’s managers from the backstage area at UFC events.

The discussion turned more substantive as the host dug deeper for an explanation for all the bad blood between the UFC and MMA websites (namely Sherdog and Full Contact Fighter).  It has been widely known that Sherdog, the worlds largest MMA website, among others have been banned from UFC events for the past few years. Gone are the days when Jeff Sherwood and company take cozy seats in front of their computers in the media section cage-side; now they have to settle for seats with the unwashed (aka: us).

Carmichael Dave asked Dana to explain the beef, and the events that led to its culmination.  One theory is that Sherdog had their credentials pulled when employee Josh Gross leaked the finalists of The Ultimate Fighter: Season 4 on his Sherdog-aired radio show before it was made public.  To this Dana said:

I know when I pulled Sherdog’s credentials, so does Jeff Sherwood, he knows exactly when and why they were pulled.  He tries to play the fat martyr when he’s out there talking to people…

It’s done, it’s over. I’ve done 60 million interviews on why the credentials were pulled. It doesn’t matter, he knows why his credentials were pulled.

Carmichael Dave followed up, but was unable to get Dana to discuss it further. However, after the interview aired, Dave started digging around online to find the real reason, but was unable to get a difinitive answer, nothing more than a few Internet theories.

In true objective journalistic prowess, Carmichael Dave booked Sherdog founder and CEO Jeff Sherwood a week later to get his take on the issue.  For an hour, Sherwood takes us on a journey through MMA’s past, back to the NHB (no holds barred) days. The website founder points to a February 2007 meeting in Dana’s Las Vegas office as the possible “excommunication” leading event.

Basically, according to both parties, the ban stems from a DVD sale debate. Originally, Zuffa (the UFC parent company) produced and distributed all of their event DVDs. When their operation became too large to handle, they naturally went to a distribution company to help ramp up the production of that department. This resulted in a price increase for the retailers including Sherdog, Full Contact Fighter, and others.  Sherdog wished to remain purchasing the DVDs from the UFC direct to save their profit margin.  According to Sherwood, when Dana couldn’t work around the new distribution company, Mr. White says one of his guys was told by Sherwood or his business partner that they would no longer sell UFC DVDs. Jeff Sherwood denies having the conversation, and is all-but-certain that his partner has never talked to Dana directly.

So then comes Dana’s view of the same meeting, as paraphrased by the host:

Jeff Sherwood: “Hey, why don’t you just sell to us directly?  We’re not getting enough of a profit margin here.”

Dana White: “I can’t go behind my guys, that’s why I got a distributor.”

JS: “Ok, if you’re not going to do that, than maybe we’ll just cover K-1 and Pride, and not the UFC.”

DW: “Are you threatening me?  You blankety, blankety, blank…! (please comment with what you think he may have said, I’ll start it below)

And that’s when Dana says he decided Sherdog and Full Contact Fighter was done.

To this, Jeff Sherwood laughs and claims the conversation never happened, and “maybe it was a dream Dana had one night when he was sleeping; and, that this is the first time Dana has ever told anyone that this was the reason for the ban.” Sherwood scoffed at the DVD theory, saying it doesn’t make any sense, and it would be stupid for him to play hardball over it.

Sherwood claimed he didn’t know the real reason shit went down, but offered a few theories of his own.  He says Sherdog’s media access at the UFC shows may have been pulled because Dana wants all the original content for their own website.  Jeff says “Dana has always wanted ufc.com to be bigger than Sherdog, and it never will because Sherdog reports on all MMA, and UFC is just focused on their own promotion.”

And, that when on May 26, 2007 Sherdog signed a deal with ESPN to supply them with MMA content. Just by chance, the first show ESPN would cover happened to be a K-1 event with Brock Lesnar headlining.  Sherwood claims that night Dana texted both him and Josh Gross (Sherdog senior writer) during the show bitching them out, saying Brock was a freak-show, etc.  Sherwood says he knew then he would never be credentialed to another Zuffa event again.

Jeff Sherwood says that other media outlets that are credentialed at the UFC “cover the events in fear, and he’s glad in a  way that he’s not allowed cage-side, because he doesn’t have to answer to Dana.”  Well, that’s one hell of a trade-off.

Dana White is ultimately doing the same thing anyone would do in his position. He has the resources and the talent with his in-house media team, and doesn’t need to deal with anyone.  Sherdog may have been in a better position for a pissing match before the TUF series began; but by ‘07 the UFC was king and couldn’t be fucked with.

Even while being officially labeled outcasts, Sherdog does a pretty thorough job reporting on UFC action, second only to: yep, you guessed it – the UFC.

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