UFC President Dana White loves a good fight, and nothing seems to fire him up more lately than going after online pirates who stream UFC events illegally.
Ahead of UFC 257 on Saturday night, White had personally targeted a particular streamer who’d actually taunted him on social media after his declaration that he was shutting down illegal streams for the event featuring Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier 2.
White said prior to the event that not only had the person threatening to broadcast the card been identified, but he said authorities were waiting to pounce on the illegal stream if the service went live on fight night.
Following Poirier’s second round knockout against McGregor to cap off the UFC’s first pay-per-view of 2021, White offered an update regarding his ongoing war.
“So let me tell you that story,” he said during the UFC 257 post-fight press conference. “The night, I guess it was I did an interview with BT [Sport] and then I think you asked me as the press conference and I basically said this is what’s going to happen. I told you guys that we found the guy and we were watching him.
“He put out a statement that night, said ‘I will not be streaming the McGregor vs. Poirier anymore, but I will show you how to buy it legally’ and put out this huge statement. Now his whole streaming service has been deleted and is gone. Disappeared. One down and sh*t load to go. I’m ready.”
In recent weeks, White has renewed his new mission to go after anybody pirating UFC events illegally. But this particular card piqued his interest because UFC 257 was expected to be one of the biggest cards of the year.
At the post-fight press conference, he said the event will likely go down as one of the two biggest pay-per-views in UFC history.
As far as deterring other online pirates stealing shows, the UFC president promises to take interest in one particular person with each and every event as he seeks to make an example out of anybody attempting to hijack his broadcast.
“Every event I’m going to go after one of these guys.” White said. “One of these or more, we’ll see.
“And who you are guy that did this, good move, we had you, pal. I don’t know if he knew or something but we had you. All you had to do was pop up that stream and you were in big trouble. He did the right thing.”
