UFC president Dana White has been the subject of scrutiny and backlash from fans on social media after video surfaced of him in a physical altercation with his wife Anne on New Year's Eve.
Dana has since come out and publicly acknowledged his actions and apologized for laying his hands on his wife. Many have called for White to be disciplined as the face of the UFC for his actions.
ESPN, the UFC's media partner, has covered the story but stopped short of echoing calls for White to face consequences. WQAM host Brendan Tobin said Thursday he thought The Worldwide Leader has put on the kid gloves when it comes to the story.
"I thought man Disney having this on them, I thought for sure was gonna be something that is going to lend to him getting punished," Tobin told his co-host Leroy Hoard. "And it's been the opposite. They have covered this up and washed over it with the softest of soft."
"What they did was kind of just give him a pass and say he's a friend," Tobin added of the discussion on First Take about the story. "And I was thinking to myself man I would rather you just ignore it than say hey we touched on it and this is how we did it."
Tobin definitely felt like given how White has stated publicly how the UFC views and handles domestic incidents in the past, it was a bit hypocritical for the same precedent to not be applied to White. He felt like there have been plenty of other examples in other sports where athletes find themselves out of a job for similar actions and ESPN has taken a stronger stance against it.
"For all the football players who have these incidents on tape, Leroy - Kareem Hunt, not with the Chiefs, Ray Rice, losing his NFL career - everybody is scared to go up there and say anything about it."
Hoard questioned what consequences Dana should face.
"See we all think something should happen, that's just the nature of what transpired, but what do you do?" he said. "You're talking about the guy who's the sole reason for you making money in the fight game."
Tobin doesn't want to see White fired, but he definitely feels like he should take a hiatus from being in the public light for the sport.
"I'm not saying Dana White's gotta go away forever," he said. "But we can't act like this is nothing."
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