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Teddy Atlas has come to the defense of UFC president Dana White after he didn't put the belt on heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou at UFC 270 last Saturday.
Ngannou is in a contract dispute with the UFC and White, who handed the title to Deiveson Figueiredo following his co-main event win over Brandon Moreno, skipped Ngannou's coronation after he beat Ciryl Gane in the night's headliner.
Speaking on The Fight podcast, the famous boxing trainer stressed that people in the MMA world who have been criticizing Dana White on social media should understand both sides of the story.
"Hey, Dana runs an operation. If I remember my numbers, he sold that for like 4.2 billion dollars... He is still the boss there. He's gotta think different than someone else. Francis and his manager, they pulled it off. They took a risk and stood up against the boss in some ways... Dana understood where he was being challenged. To his credit, the fight still went on. But you have to respect both sides that they did what they needed to do," said Atlas.
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Watch Teddy Atlas in conversation with his co-host Ken Rideout below:
Eric Nicksick feels it was "a weak move" by Dana White to not put the belt on his trainee Francis Ngannou at UFC 270
Francis Ngannou shifted away from his usual stand-up strategy and grappled his way to victory at the Honda Center. He was behind by two rounds and then outwrestled Gane to claim a unanimous decision triumph.
Coach Eric Nicksick was lauded by several MMA fans and pundits for bringing about the change in Ngannou's style during the UFC 270 main event.
It is, however, still unclear if 'The Predator' will fight again in the UFC. Speaking on the most recent edition of The MMA Hour, Nicksick claimed that just when Ngannou and White were seemingly patching things up, the UFC president came up with "a weak move."
"I wish he would have taken the high road, just went in and done it. Because the last couple of weeks, I felt that White and Francis Ngannou had been mending things... But for him to not be there, I just thought it was kind of a weak move," said Nicksick.
Watch Eric Nicksick in conversation with MMA journalist Ariel Helwani below:
