The usual fare of Dana White fielding questions from the press he gives credentials to. However there's a couple of points Dana makes I feel like nitpicking over.
- Dana defends Brock's ability to Coach on the Ultimate Fighter by saying he's been a world champion in such a short amount of time. That speaks to his ability as a fighter, not a coach. But as long as he brings in his coaching staff to do the grunt work it's a moot point. Please please please, get Erik Paulson on. He actually has experience training fighters less than 250lbs and is actually the most experienced all around MMA trainer he has.
- Dana says the last season of TUF had the best ratings ever. TUF 12 actually built up ratings towards the end of its run which is unusual as the previous pattern has been to start off well and then wane towards the end. However TUF 12 actually only had the 5th best ratings ever overall out of all the seasons that have run. With Lesnar on board this could well be the best one yet - at least in terms of ratings.
- Dana said Junior Dos Santos and Roy Nelson were in a 5 round war. You'd think it was just a slip at first, but then Dana goes on to say how he loves guys that go 5 rounds and the experience of fighting that length of fight is good for both guys. Maybe Dana still has Edgar vs Maynard on the brain but it's a pretty noticeable slip and indicative that White wasn't fully prepared and BS'ed his way through the call, something I've noticed he's been doing on other press calls and conferences. He has assistants who can do some prep work and hand him some cue cards, he really ought to use them so when fielding questions he actually sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
Otherwise there's nothing really to shout about. No real indication of how difficult it was to get Lesnar to coach or what he needed to do to get it done (my guess is similar to Tito Ortiz 2nd stint with Punishment Athletics plastered everywhere we might see Team Lesnar actually turnout to be Team Deathclutch).
Dana does however shoot down the idea that Lesnar ever had any interest in competing at this year's Wrestlemania. Whether you believe Dana White or not, I never bought Dave Meltzer on that one and commented at the time it was nothing more than speculation. Unfortunately others of us here got completely worked on that one and ran with it. But hey, it was an interesting non-story for a couple of weeks and I'm sure Meltzer appreciated the surge in income via traffic driven ad revenue or new WON subscriptions in the run up to Christmas. As reliable and respected as Meltzer usually is he's been covering Pro Wrestling long enough for a touch of the Carneys to have rubbed off on him. The more cynical of us already knew this, but hopefully lesson learned for the rest.