In late July, WWE world heavyweight champion Seth Rollins tweeted UFC president Dana White that he wishes he could watch the Ronda Rousey fight and joked that "Vince [McMahon] got you beat there" and that WWE "pay per views are only $9.99."
White responded: "I hear you bro, but fake s*** should be $9.99."
That set off a firestorm of backlash from the WWE Universe, with even wrestling superstars of the past and present attacking White on Twitter to the point that he recently addressed those comments on the Chad Dukes Show podcast.
On one hand, White said he respects what WWE wrestlers put their bodies through, but said it's nearly impossible to be in the position he's in and not irk someone.
"Listen, try to do anything today without pissing people off. Try it," White said. "I mean anything you say, people get mad, you just gotta not care and I don't care. Anything you say on Twitter or Instagram or anywhere these days every week I have a different group mad at me so you know it 's always something, but it's still the world we live in today.
"My Twitter and social media has been exactly the same since the day I got on it and one of the things, you said it best, the more successful you become, the bigger something gets, the harder it is to be yourself and to really speak honestly because somebody ends up getting mad," he added. "You literally just have to get to the point where you just don't care who gets mad and that's how I am."
That said, White has a real respect for the WWE.
"I've had my, you know, my battles with Vince [McMahon] behind the scenes with some stuff that we've worked on, but I respect all the guys in the WWE in the wrestling profession," he said. "We have so many guys that are fans of the UFC and when they come to the events, we take very good care of 'em, we treat 'em with respect.
"I have yet to meet a bad guy from the wrestling world. Everybody is really classy and everybody's really cool," White continued. "My wrestling thing was just a response to an idiot on social media that was talking smack so I kind of gave him a zinger back and the whole wrestling world went crazy on me. But it is what it is, to be honest with you, I really don't care."
Given White's comments, it will be interesting to see if a UFC star like Rousey has any trouble participating in the WWE ever again.
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