Conor McGregor Expose Dana White @ UFC 246 Press Conference

The UFC has scheduled a pre-fight press conference for UFC 246. At that event – which takes place on Thursday, January 15th – the headlining fighters on the card, Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone will sit in front of what can only be assumed will be a plethora of MMA and mainstream reporters. And while the UFC can be criticized for many things, one thing the promotion has always been very good at during these pre-fight events is controlling the access media. The UFC sometimes uses threats to control the people covering their events live. Those threats can be implied or stated outright. I’ll use myself as an example of the latter. In 2019 I wrote a story that a UFC employee did not appreciate. I did agree that I should have added context to that story. So I did. When the update was not sufficient for this PR person, he threatened me via email. Below is the final email that was sent to me before I stopped replying: “You barely updated this post. The headline is still misleading. WTF? I know you were credentialed for one of our events this year. If this is going to be your approach to coverage, don’t even bother asking next time.” True to its word, the UFC denied my two most recent requests for credentials. Let me rephrase that. I was told – less than 24 hours before the event – that my first request was denied due to space constraints. My second request sat in “submitted” status until the day after the fight card when it magically disappeared. I have not requested credentials since. (You can read a more detailed story here) The MMA media that craves access knows this happens. They know if they refuse to play nice, they might join Josh Gross, Loretta Hunt, Jonathan Snowden and myself on the list of folks who can’t get credentialed to a UFC event for whatever silly reason.