Conor McGregor, Dana White quarrel with Stephen Espinoza over PPV numbers

Conor McGregor and Dana White made a lot of money this past year working with Stephen Espinoza, but that doesn’t mean they have to like the Showtime executive.

The UFC president recently sat down with Yahoo! Sports to discuss a number of topics, including White’s plans to go into boxing and his issues with how Showtime handled their end of last August’s blockbuster fight between McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.

Most pointedly, White was displeased with Showtime’s release of the pay-per-view numbers. The press release stated that McGregor-Mayweather was the second-most bought PPV in history, which seemed to contradict White’s assertion that it had actually claimed the No. 1 spot.

“When we did the Mayweather fight, I watched and took it all in, I just think all these guys, the guys who are promoting boxing today are bad at it,” White said. “I don’t think they do a good job, and I think I could do better. It sounds arrogant, but it’s the truth. I think I could do a better job than these guys do.

“You know, think about this, and I don’t give a s**t about Showtime’s f**king full-of-s**t press release they put out. It’s the biggest fight ever in combat sports history. The thing did over 6.7 million buys, and if the service didn’t drop, we would have got closer to seven million. It was the biggest event ever. It was the biggest boxing event ever, without a boxer. It was only one boxer involved in the fight.”

White went on to say that he “despises” the Showtime crew and vowed to “never work with them again, ever.”

Word got out to Espinoza and he responded via Twitter, questioning White’s handling of the facts:

Not to be left out, McGregor himself felt the need to chime in and he didn’t hold anything back:

To that, Espinoza offered another response:

This isn’t the first time McGregor and Espinoza have butted heads directly. During the press tour for the Mayweather fight, McGregor accused Espinoza of cutting off his microphone during a stop in Los Angeles. The next day in Toronto, McGregor ripped into Espinoza while the two were onstage.

“You little weasel,” McGregor said. “Look at you you little f**king weasel, I can see it in your eyes, you’re a f**king bitch. Cut my mic off? Cut the champ’s mic off? Hell no. You f**king weasel.”