The rivalry between Oscar De La Hoya and Dana White reached a new high, or maybe it’s better to describe it as a new low, with their Twitter beefing over the weekend.
De La Hoya, 48, and White, 52, engaged in some brutal back-and-forth back in 2018, when Oscar looked to diversify himself and Golden Boy’s business by branching out into mixed martial arts. The foray was disastrous and brief, as his “senior tour” PPV topped by a Chuck Liddell vs Tito Ortiz bout tanked.
De La Hoya vowed to soldier on in MMA, but instead went back into his familiar lane. White savaged the Hall of Fame fighter, mocking him with references to his ongoing battle with substance abuse. White publicly labeled Oscar a “cokehead junkie” and “fucking cokehead nut ball.”
White went back to that tactic on Twitter, after Oscar drew back his bow and took aim at the UFC honcho following this past weekend’s UFC 266 PPV:
STFU U crack head. Faking that u had Covid and robbing me of watching u get KTFO by @vitorbelfort you should win an academy award for your hospital performance.
— danawhite (@danawhite) September 26, 2021
Oscar has jabbed at White regularly for not paying his fighters a larger part of the pie, and used that attack after Saturday’s main event saw Alex Volcanovski better Brian Ortega in a main event thriller. Each man’s announced guaranteed purse was $300,000, and both earned $50,000 bonuses for engaging in the “Fight of the Night.” Still, the total payout to those campaigners is a fraction of what pretty much any boxing PPV headliners would receive.
Now, it can be argued that this isn’t news. Noted and not summarily dismissed — but this isn’t simply a dick measuring contest between two testosterone-laden alpha males.
White’s poke at Oscar, calling him a “crackhead,” calls attention to the persistent whispering chatter about Oscar’s state of being, and the widespread conjecture within the industry about just how hard a hit Oscar took when Canelo bolted Golden Boy Promotions last year.
Oscar’s “loosey goosey” behavior at the April 17 Triller PPV in Georgia — he was in his cups on air while “helping analyze” the Steve Cunningham vs Frank Mir fight — hasn’t been forgotten, and it remains a stubborn stain on both Oscar and the Triller team, for low standards of conduct quality control. White adding the allegation that Oscar faked a COVID diagnosis to get out of fighting Vitor Belfort two weeks ago is a defamatory blast. It’s hard to prove that sort of charge, and if Dana has proof that Oscar faked COVID, then he should offer it up.
Basically, both White and De La Hoya are trading pretty big strikes at one another, and outsiders looking in could watch the sniping and score the fight even, because the insults are grounded in some degree of truth. And until White decides to improve his payout/gross ratio — which probably only happens with the “help” of some top tier UFC talent banding together to bargain in more of a collective fashion — and Oscar puts together a lengthy stint of stable conduct, I think it’s a good bet we see these public spats continue.