Floyd Mayweather's Manager Responds to Dana White Calling Floyd Racist

Last night we discussed UFC president Dana White calling Floyd Mayweather racist for his comments about Jeremy Lin. It didn't take too long for Mayweather, or at least a Mayweather representative to fire back.

Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports with the words:

"He needs to shut the [expletive] up and mind his own business, stay in his own lane and keep on taking advantage of the UFC fighters, while underpaying them," Ellerbe told Yahoo! Sports after learning of White's rant. "If he keeps on running his mouth, we may decide to give a free seminar to all of the UFC fighters on how the pay-per-view revenue should be distributed. This is typical Dana, who is always prone to ignorant outbursts. He should be the last person to try to judge someone else."

After learning of Ellerbe's response, White sent a text to Yahoo! Sports directed to Ellerbe.

"Just for the record, shut the [expletive] up [because] I wasn't talking to you," White said by text. "I was talking to Floyd. We're doing something amazing. We're building a sport while you guys are destroying one. "

There's a lot going on here. Ellerbe falls into the trap of assuming that there is money to go around in the UFC to the point where pay-per-view revenue can be chopped up "Mayweather style." Meanwhile, Dana is insisting that Floyd, Golden Boy, Top Rank and Manny Pacquiao should all set aside promotional and personal interests to make the fight. This despite White's firm anti-co-promotion stance that led to the biggest fight in MMA not happening multiple times when they couldn't come to terms to bring Fedor Emelianenko into the UFC to face Randy Couture and then Brock Lesnar.

Look, this isn't to say that Dana was wrong to not co-promote with Fedor's management. But rather that I think Dana is appealing to the lack of crossover understanding between the sports. There is this idea that "oh man, if only Dana White was a boxing promoter! He'd fix everything!" while the reality is that if Dana were a boxing promoter, he'd promote exactly like Bob Arum or Oscar De La Hoya. Because that is the smart thing to do and that is the way the sport is structured. You look out for your own interests first, that's not particularly different from the reason that he wouldn't book one of his champions against a guy like Fedor (at the time thought to be the best fighter on the planet) because should they lose he has nothing to gain. It's just not as ugly in execution nor as long, drawn out and full of nonsense as the Floyd/Manny negotiations.

In the end this is just two guys who like to be the loudest voice in the room yelling things that don't particularly apply but do appeal to segments of their sport's fanbases.