Former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub is tired of watching Dana White get glazed on a bunch of influencer podcasts.
Aside from a handful of pre- and post-fight media scrums each month, the UFC CEO’s interaction with legitimate combat sports journalists is few and far between. Instead, White insists on dedicating much of his time to social media stars like the NELK Boys — a group of YouTube pranksters, who somehow found themselves as one of the biggest outlets for UFC news and interviews.
And quite frankly, Schaub of it.
“We’re f*cked,” Schaub said while discussing the influencer invasion of the UFC. “When you’re only going on these cupcake shows and they’re like, ‘Dude, bro, is Ronda [Rousey] coming back?!’ These are the hard-hitting questions? Nobody is going to hold his feet to the fire?”
“The NELK Boys can’t even name five UFC fighters, and we get this,” Schaub continued. “This is where they’re breaking news and breaking down fights. I have nothing against the NELK Boys. My issue is, you can do the NELK Boys, but you can [also] do actual journalists that are going to hold your feet to the fire with the legit questions we want to hear.”
Dana White doesn’t let the UFC play nice with MMA media
White has been more than vocal about his disdain for the MMA media, which is likely why he insists on handing breaking news and exclusive interviews to YouTubers, comedians, and podcasters, like NELK Boys frontmen Kyle Forgeard, Jesse Sebastiani, and Stephen Deleonardis.
Just ask Ariel Helwani.
