Dana White backtracks on UFC fighter health benefits: ‘I responded to the wrong guy’

If you are an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter eager for more comprehensive fighter health benefits, don’t hold your breath.

UFC fighters around the globe must perked up when UFC President, Dana White, stated that long-term health benefits were coming to UFC fighters. It all took place in the comments section of an impromptu Q&A with White hosted by broadcaster Karyn Bryant.

A fan commented on the post asking, “Will the UFC ever offer their fighters full-time health benefits so they can have them after their careers are over and possibly deal with life-altering issues from fighting[?]”

The UFC boss simply replied, “Soon.”

In a follow up with UFC Arabia’s Farah Hannon, White insisted it was all a misunderstanding.

“Yeah, uhm, that actually wasn’t a Q&A, that was on Instagram,” White said (h/t Lowkick MMA). “I responded to the wrong guy when I said ‘soon’ [laughs]. That was wrong actually, I responded — I noticed that later, that I had said, ‘soon’, but it was on the wrong post. I wasn’t talking to that guy. It was somebody else.“

Former UFC champion and current Bellator queen Cris Cyborg — or whoever runs her Twitter account — shunned the promotion for not taking care of its athletes long-term.

”Fighters like [Tim Sylvia] and more deserve to have their injuries from fighting in the [UFC] taken care of without paying thousands once their careers are over,” she tweeted.

In 2004, Sylvia suffered one of the nastiest bone breaks ever in a mixed martial arts (MMA) fight after Frank Mir snapped his arm like a twig with an armbar at UFC 48. Seventeen years later, “The Maine-iac” is still having lingering issues with the injury and UFC (thus far) has refused to help the retired champion.