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A prominent MMA journalist recently recalled what led to his rift with Dana White and said that he would be willing to hash things out. He noted that they had previously been on great terms with each other, however, things reached a boiling point after his career was jeopardized.
Ariel Helwani was a fixture at UFC events and had several exclusive one-on-one interviews with White in the past. But, that changed after the promotion's top brass took issue with what was being discussed on The MMA Hour.
During his latest appearance on Bo Nickal's Nickals and Dimes Podcast, Helwani brought up that he and White had a great relationship and would exchange messages often until 2016.
Helwani mentioned that even though they have been on bad terms since then, he would be willing to make amends with the UFC CEO because he doesn't want to hold a lifelong grudge:
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"Despite all the differences and there's much more that happened, if Dana White called me up now and said, 'Come to Vegas and let's bury the hatchet', I would have many reasons to say, 'F you, I'm not interested', but I would say, 'Yes'. I would be on a plane. I'm not looking to do that, to get interviews or scoops or access. I just believe you live life once and I don't want any hate in my heart. I don't want any animosity. I think life is too short for that."
Check out Ariel Helwani's comments below:
Ariel Helwani opens up about infamous ban from Dana White's UFC
In addition to discussing his relationship with Dana White and expressing interest in making amends, Ariel Helwani opened up about his infamous ban from the UFC in 2016.
During the aforementioned appearance, Helwani mentioned that after being let go by Fox, he set out to break as many stories as possible, which included the announcement that Brock Lesnar would be returning to the octagon at UFC 200:
"I was doing such a good job that UFC was convinced that I had a mole in the company that was feeding me information. I swear to God, I had no mole. It all came to a head when I reported that Brock Lesnar was coming back. They were very unhappy about this, they thought I ruined a surprise...That's when they banned me [at] UFC 199."
Check out a clip of Ariel Helwani and Dana White having a friendly debate below:
