Evans Warns Woodley: Don’t Fight Dana, You Will Lose

I’m not sure how many mixed martial arts (MMA) fans remember the early days of Rashad Evans, not long after he captured the crown as a heavyweight wrestler on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 2, but “Sugar’ got into a heated argument with promotion president Dana White at the UFC Fight Night 8 post-fight press conference way back in January 2007.

The point of contention?

“Suga” — fresh off his oft-replayed head kick knockout of Sean Salmon — refused to fight Jackson’s MMA teammate Keith Jardine, and let White know in front of an entire room of reporters after a media member posed the potential pairing (read it here). That pretty much set the tone for the remainder of his career.

Which lost “years” over petty squabbles like that one.

That’s why Evans wants reigning welterweight champion Tyron Woodley to stop trying to prove to the world that he’s always right and White is always wrong, because it’s simply not good business to be at odds with the person responsible for your revenue stream.

Evans breaks it down for The MMA Hour:

“At this point, he can’t win this because he fights for the UFC. Dana is the president of the UFC, there’s no way he can win this. Feel the way you feel, but you gotta know whenever the conversation comes up that Dana said this — don’t even address it. Don’t go down that road. I took too many years off my fighting career arguing with Dana: trying to fight Shogun, trying to get a fight with this guy, trying to do all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter that much. I just lost time. What do you gain from being right to Dana White? Nothing, you lose a lot. Whether you’re right or wrong you lose. Why even play with it if you want to be a fighter — especially when two of your revenue streams are tied to things that he controls?”

Gives new meaning to the word welterwhiner.

Woodley was back in the headlines on Monday because White said he was “full of shit” and apparently, that’s all it takes to send “The Chosen One” into a perpetual state of butthurt. I guess he missed some of those other White-isms because “full of shit” is practically a compliment by comparison.

To be fair, Woodley doesn’t help his own cause.

In addition to battling fans on social media, the miffed Missourian is constantly trying to finagle a big-money super fight or travel down the path of least resistance. Prior to this latest round of “I’m fighting Nate Diaz” claims, Woodley was trying to lure his older brother Nick out of the shadows.

A place he may find himself in should he not follow Evans’ advice.