Dana White dismisses claims of favoritism by commission at UFC Paris: ‘There was no foul play whatsoever’
Dana White completely rejects any claims of favoritism by the French commission at UFC Paris.
This past Saturday, the UFC returned to Paris for its third show in the French capital. Some drama took place before the fights as Brendan Allen — who fought Nassourdine Imavov in the co-main event — accused the French athletic commission of corruption for detaining him along with Renato Moicano for drug-testing after their official weigh-ins. According to Allen, he and Moicano were detained for several hours while they waited to give samples, which interfered with his normal recovery schedule. Given this happened to he and Moicano, who were both facing French fighters at UFC Paris, Allen felt something was amiss.
And Allen was not alone. On Tuesday, Moicano — who went on to defeat Benoit Saint Denis in the main event — revealed on his podcast he was similarly unhappy with the situation, though he is open to the idea it was simply incompetence at play, not corruption.
“I made weight at 10:00 in the morning and I left the room at like 2 p.m. That was f*cking unbelievable,” Moicano said. “Four hours waiting to do the test, because I didn’t have water in my body.
“They only had like two people in the commission and they said once you weigh in, you cannot leave, because you have to have a person with you all the time. But they had more than three or four athletes over there. I don’t care if the commission is corrupt, or if they’re just dumb. One of those two. Or they’re both. But you cannot test somebody that doesn’t have water in their body.”
For what it’s worth, White says was the latter.
On Tuesday, White spoke with reporters following the latest episode of Dana White’s Contender Series where he addressed Allen’s claims, categorically denying any corruption.
“It’s not true,” White said. “They were feeling like they were being singled out. The French guys were available. They have their own doping organization that they use. Did they make probably bad judgment around the weigh-in time? Yes. It’s when those guys are the most miserable, dehydrated, the list goes on and on.
“There was no foul play whatsoever with them. We get why they felt that way, but it wasn’t true.”
Ultimately, Allen lost his fight against Imavov via unanimous decision, while Moicano scored a second-round stoppage of Saint Denis in the main event.