Miguel Torres cut from UFC

http://mma-boxing.si.com/2011/12/08/dana-white-responds-to-rashad-evans-miguel-torres-media-miscues/

UFC bantamweight Miguel Torres has been dropped by the organization on the heels of his tweet this week about a “rape van,” SI.com has learned. Meanwhile, UFC president Dana White says the details regarding insensitive remarks made by a remorseful Rashad Evans were such that Evans won’t suffer a similar fate.

In a Q&A with SI.com Thursday afternoon, White shared this thoughts about the miscues after they had gone viral over the previous 24 hours. Torres had come under fire for posting a tweet that read: “If a rape van was called a surprise van more women wouldn’t mind going for rides in them. Everyone like surprises.” Evans, meanwhile, during a public press conference promoting his Jan. 28 fight on Fox, said to his opponent, former Penn State wrestler Phil Davis, “I guarantee you’ll be the first one to take a [wrestling] shot. Guarantee. Because I’m going to put my hands on you worse than that dude did them other kids at Penn State.”

SI.com: Let’s talk about Rashad.

Dana White: First of all, if you saw the press conference, it was the worst microphone system in the history of this company. The microphones at this place either didn’t work or they’d go in and out in between every word you said. So Rashad said that [the Penn State joke] yesterday. I didn’t even hear what he said. And it didn’t even get back to me until I landed in Toronto, which was four hours later.

Here’s the other thing you’ve got to understand. With my fighters, there’s no excuses like, “Hey, listen, he’s a dumb guy. Came from the mean streets of somewhere. He’s just not all that bright.” These are educated guys, most of them went to college, they have families, children, etc. These are smart, rational people I’m dealing with.

So when I call Rashad about this thing, he’s like, “You know what Dana,” and gives me the context of it. Him and Davis started getting into this heated back-and-forth about what they’re going to do to each other the night of the fight. Davis went to Penn State. Davis wrestled for Penn State. Rashad wrestled for Michigan. [Rashad] said, “It just came out.” Zing him and zing his school at the same time. Very, very poor choice of words. I mean, it was the stupidest thing he could have said and he absolutely agrees.

So we talked on the phone, he gave me his explanation, he said, “I’ll do whatever it takes, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend anybody. In the heat of the moment, that’s what I said to him because he’s from Penn State.”

SI.com: So you didn’t hear it during the press conference? No one said anything to you right after you walked off?

White: No! Nobody said anything at the press conference. Nobody said anything on Twitter that had watched it. It wasn’t until ESPN wrote a story that anybody said anything to me.

SI.com: So you didn’t take any recourse with Rashad? There was no fine?

White: I talked to Rashad. Rashad walked me through what he did. He went to Penn State. [He said] I wanted to slam him and Penn State. I’m not like traditional sports [executives]: “All right Rashad, pay us 30 grand.” That stuff is all formalities to make it look good. Yeah, he was fined, he was this, he was that. Rashad is sorry for what he said. He truly is. He said it in the heat of the moment. He definitely took the wrong choice of words. He knows it and I know he knows it.

SI.com: And what about Miguel Torres’ tweet from yesterday?

White: This morning I’m on [Michael] Landsburg’s show, up here in Canada, and he hits me with the quote of what he tweeted. Now there’s no explanation for that. There’s absolutely nothing I could say to make any sense of that. And the fact that he even thinks that’s funny or that’s a joke, it disturbs me. It bothers me. Again, you’re dealing with a guy that’s a smart guy, that owns his own business, that’s been one of the top fighters in the world forever. And I cut him today. He’s no longer with the UFC.

SI.com: Was that announced today?

White: It’s being announced right now to you. You’re the only one that knows. Miguel Torres has been cut from the UFC and his career with us now is over.

SI.com: Was this the first time something’s happened with Torres? Or was it a second offense?

White: No, this was the first time. And then he said he hadn’t heard what happened to Forrest [Griffin, who drew fire for tweeting "Rape is the new missionary" last month]. Really? Where do you live? What business are you in? How do you not hear about these things? You should have paid more attention. It’s to the point now where, there’s going be times when things happen and mistakes are made. I cannot defend Miguel Torres. I cannot defend what he said. What he said makes no sense other than when he says, “It was a joke.” Well, I don’t think that’s a funny joke. I think it’s disturbing.

SI.com: So many of the major sports leagues have been curtailing their athletes’ involvement on Twitter, but the UFC has been praised for being so progressive and forward-thinking with social media. Are we now seeing the perils of that?

White: No. I’m a firm believer in … just because these guys are professional athletes or whatever, everybody’s going to have an opinion on something, and not everybody’s going to get along. I’ve had my words with fans on Twitter too. When people come on Twitter and say dumb s— to you, expect to get some dumb s— back. But for a guy to go out and talk about a “rape van” being a “surprise van,” there’s no defense for that.

And I’m a realist. I treat people and I deal with my fighters and I deal with the fans like a real person. I don’t come out and read canned statements written by our lawyers. I deal with the guys on a case-by-case basis and how they handle themselves. We’re all entitled to make mistakes. I’m not one of these guys where if you make a mistake, I’m gonna try to tear your life down and burn it to the ground.

We just had one of our fighters, Chris Leben, test positive for [Oxycodone and Oxymorphone], and he’s been suspended for a year by the UFC. Now with the suspension it’s not like, “Hey, Chris, you’re suspended, we don’t want to hear from you in a year, good luck with your career and everything else, and if it doesn’t work out, oh well, there’s a million other fighters waiting to line up.” I care about this guy, as a person, as a human being, before he’s a fighter. And I want to make sure Chris Leben is OK. If he needs any type of therapy or rehab or whatever it might be to make sure his personal life is on track, that means more to me than anything else. There’s going to be guys that are going to make mistakes. Some guys are going to make mistakes bad enough that they’re going to burn themselves to the ground. It’s all in how a guy handles himself after he makes a mistake. That’s what I care about.

SI.com: You’ve said the first two years of the new Fox deal will be the most important 24 months in the UFC’s history. Part of the appeal of the sport is how raw and unfiltered a lot of the guys are. Is there a balance need to find between the two forces?

White: I want this sport to stay exactly the same. We’re the most fan-accessible sport out there. When you show up at an event, you talk to fighters and you meet fighters. A lot of times, [the fans and the media] live in a fantasy land, like these guys aren’t real human beings. But the one thing I can consistently say about my guys is they’re fan-accessible. It’s the way that it is. And it’s never going to be perfect, but we treat our fans better than any other sports league does. We’re going to have times when guys are gonna say some stupid stuff, but I handle them on a case-by-case basis

Must say, i am shocked. Torres is still plenty relevant...but his comments came in a time where somebody had to pay for Rashad.

Bullshit

This is just big message to all fighters under the Zuffa banner that they have to get their shit together...no more twitter rape jokes from Forrest, Rashad, and company.

Things just got real with this Fox deal...I feel bad more Torres...should see him on Bellator next season.

Message to any fighter not raised on the zuffa tuf teet

Yeah, i don't buy it as a message to all zuffa fighters. Griffin and Evans will always be given a break because they are "remorseful" while i would not be surprised if Dana never even talked to Torres regarding this. Dana established a double standard, not a rule of conduct for all Zuffa talent.

Damn, that is harsh, and that really sucks for Miguel, everything else is just that everything else

A little harsh.

Apparently it was a line from an episode of Its Always Sunny

I think Torres will be back when this explanation gets out. How the hell can you be cut for quoting a line from a cable sitcom regardless of its offensiveness

bobbitt15 wrote:

I think Torres will be back when this explanation gets out. How the hell can you be cut for quoting a line from a cable sitcom regardless of its offensiveness

A quote from a fox network....

Nevermind apparently it was from Workaholics. Point stands either way (although I don't remember that line from the show)

Season 4: the gang solves the gas crisis. Frank buys w rape van. Close enough.

GDPofDRC wrote:

bobbitt15 wrote:

I think Torres will be back when this explanation gets out. How the hell can you be cut for quoting a line from a cable sitcom regardless of its offensiveness

A quote from a fox network....

YUP!!!

this is fucking bullshit... fuck you dana white! FUCK YOU

Rashad gets a pass for something SOOOO much fucking worse and you cut Torres? ok dip shit!

This is the UFC picking an expendable fall guy to make it seem like they won't tolerate those kind of jokes in light of the more publicized ones from their more known fighters. I knew what Evans had said. I didnt hear anything about a Torres tweet until this article..i doubt anybody truly gave a shit what he said. The heat was on Evans.

I don't think it matters to them if it was a quote from a show..if it is and the UFC does not know that, they didnt even give Torres a chance to show he was "remorseful" like Sugar and Forrest conveniently were or even get a chance to offer an explanation.

poor dude was going for the tweet bonus too... stupid ufc

Thats the thing that burns My ass here. The UFC not only encouraged the wackiest shit these guys could come up with, but offered cash prizes in the thousands of dollar range and now go through policing anything mildly controversial like quoting a cable tv show?

guess who won a twitter award? forrest griffin

[flash][/flash]

watched the whole interview. He didnt make a believer out of me with how Griffin and Evans was OK, and Torres was out of line.

I might reconsider my Nog vs. Mir pick this weekend...Mir will be grieving going into that fight after Torres got cut.

the comments don't bother me, i'd go as far as to say that rashads comment was quite funny for his standards.

people keep doing this shit on twitter though. whilst imo it's their twitter page and it's their right to say whatever they want on it, athletes and entertainers across the world keep making these type of comments and keep bringing a load of shit on themselves by doing it.

whilst i will defend the right of idiotic UFC fighters who erroneously believe they are of sufficient intelligence that their most mundane thoughts are worth hearing to make those comments, when are they going to realise that they are opening themselves up to trouble by doing so?

Dana White sucks, but we already knew that.

White on the overall decision to cut Miguel while not cutting Forrest Griffin or Rashad Evans for somewhat similar recent situations:

"It wasn't that I thought this was offensive. I thought it was
absolutely ridiculous and offensive. And yeah, I'm sure, offensive to
many people. There's been cases here where things have happened where
some people have been offended by things that the fighters have said.
You know, we have the Forrest Griffin incident, we've got the Rashad
Evans incident and now the Miguel Torres incident. Now, the way that I
handle these things with guys is, you know, we're all gonna make
mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. And, you know, a lot of the way that
the public looks at these things is when a guy makes a mistake, you put
him up on this pedistal, he makes a mistake and you want to burn him
down. They burn him down, they beat him down. And that's not the way
that I operate. We don't come out at the UFC with these canned
statements that are written by our lawyers, we handle everything on a
case by case basis, with the idea that people are going to make
mistakes. And it's how you handle yourself after you make that mistake."

More quotes from Dana on the process, not being pressured into
decisions and if Torres is the first to be cut for something he tweeted
after the jump






On how he found out about the tweet and what happened next:

"He (Michael Landsberg) reads me Miguel Torres' tweet, which is...let
me try to quote it here. Basically 'Rape vans. If they were called
surprise vans, more women would get into them, because everybody loves a
surprise.' When he read that to me here this morning I was...I was
blown away. It's one of the first times in an interview that I didn't
know what to say and I was just blown away. So as soon as I was done
with that interview, I got ready and had to head over to the press
conference. So I've got people working on 'is that what was said?' et
cetera. After the press conference I find out that is what was said, he
did say that, and he was joking. It was just a joke. And that's not a
funny joke to me. That's not a...it's just not something you tweet, you
know? If that's your sense of humor, keep it at home around you and your
buddies and keep it to yourself. It's not something that you put out on
Twitter. And there's no explination for it, there's no...I can't make
any sense of it. And enough is enough. If this doesn't...at least, when
you're getting ready to Twitter or you're getting ready to say
something, think about what you're going to say, think about what you're
going to tweet and use a little common sense."

On if this was due to pressure from Fox or media after a string of similar situations:

"I'm not gonna be pressured by the fans, the media or anybody else to
go in and attack my guys when they make a mistake. I'm not gonna come
out with these canned, written statements from our lawyers. We're gonna
handle this thing honestly and real. Just like everybody would in real
life. And what Miguel Torres wrote is unacceptable. It's unacceptable."

And on if Miguel was the first to be cut from the UFC for something he tweeted:

"Probably, yeah. I think so. I'm not positive, but yeah, I'd have to say yes."