UFC CEO Dana White has firmly rejected allegations made by former two-division champion Alex Pereira, who recently accused the promotion of using influential figures and commentators like Daniel Cormier to manipulate fan sentiment surrounding upcoming championship matchups.
The controversy ignited earlier in the week when Pereira publicly voiced his strong opposition to the prospective heavyweight title fight between Ciryl Gane and Josh Hokit. According to "Poatan," the UFC orchestrated a campaign utilizing high-profile influencers and analysts—specifically naming former dual-weight champion and broadcaster Daniel Cormier—to steer public opinion in favor of booking the matchup and generate artificial excitement across the mixed martial arts community.
Cormier swiftly addressed the accusation, pushing back against the narrative on Tuesday by completely denying that he had received any directives or talking points from UFC management regarding how to promote or discuss the Gane-versus-Hokit bout. Later that same night, following the conclusion of the final episode of season 10 of Dana White’s Contender Series, the UFC head honcho faced the media and strongly corroborated Cormier’s defense, dismissing Pereira’s assertions as baseless paranoia.
"Of course that’s not true," White told reporters during the post-event media scrum. "These guys are the most paranoid people on the planet. Like we’re telling DC — I’ve never told DC to do anything, ever. It doesn’t work like that. We don’t operate like that."
The roots of Pereira’s grievance appear to extend beyond standard promotional disagreements, drawing heavily from his personal animosity toward Ciryl Gane. The Brazilian star suffered a high-profile defeat to Gane in a battle for the interim heavyweight title at a major event dubbed UFC White House. Ever since that setback, Pereira has aggressively lobbied for an immediate rematch, frequently pointing to alleged illegal strikes delivered by Gane during the bout as the primary catalyst for his loss. While Pereira has occasionally found himself at odds with the promotion over various matters in the past, this particular dispute seems to carry a much heavier personal weight for the elite striker.
This friction also coincides with a broader period of outspokenness among top-tier fighters on the roster, notably UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland, who has similarly spent recent weeks airing public grievances against the organization’s brass. However, from White’s perspective, athlete discontent and promotional friction are simply standard components of running a global combat sports enterprise with hundreds of contracted competitors.
"I don’t know. We have over 700 guys on contract, and we’ve talked about two of them being sideways right now," White said, contextualizing the recent wave of fighter complaints. "This is normal when you’re in this business. As you guys know — first of all, I’ve never told Rogan or DC or any of these guys to say anything about anybody. And one of the things, as a longtime fan of the fight business, I actually can’t stand the commentators saying negative things about fighters or anything like that."
Addressing the operational independence of the broadcast booth, White emphasized that neither play-by-play announcers nor color commentators operate under scripts or directives issued by the executive suite. He maintained that the commentary team’s evaluations are entirely independent and that fighters maintain absolute autonomy over their public statements.
"I don’t tell anybody what to say," White continued. "I don’t tell the fighters what to say, I don’t tell the commentators what to say. This thing all just plays out organically in the way that the fights are called, and whatever they say when they walk out here and they interview with you guys tonight. We don’t police any of that stuff. If we did, Sean Strickland would’ve been gone three f*cking years ago, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation."
