“I Wouldn’t Do That to Even an Enemy”: Dana White Reveals How Vince McMahon Embarrassed Him at a Ronda Rousey WWE Match

Dana White and Oscar De La Hoya are never exactly going to be best friends, but even White says there’s a line he wouldn’t cross. According to the UFC CEO, he’d rather tell De La Hoya to stay the hell away than invite him to an event just to make him look stupid.

That came up after De La Hoya claimed he skipped the Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn fight because he thought the UFC head honcho and his team were trying to set him up for an embarrassing moment. The two promoters had joined forces the month before to hype the WBC title fight, with White’s Zuffa Boxing taking the lead despite the event being a co-promotion.

“I would never do that,” Dana White said at the Dana White’s Contender Series post-fight press conference. “Listen, my dislike for Oscar De La Hoya is very well known. He knows it, I know it, and it’s mutual.

“But I am the type of person I would call and say, ‘Don’t even f—— try to show up to this fight; you’re not welcome.’ I would never have somebody show up to an event and do that to them.”

Dana White’s stance isn’t just talk, either. He knows exactly what it feels like to show up somewhere and get treated like an unwanted guest. And according to the UFC boss, he got a taste of that treatment from Vince McMahon himself.

The UFC CEO brought up the incident while recalling his trip to New Orleans for Ronda Rousey’s first WWE match at WrestleMania 34 in 2018.

NEW YORK, NY – JULY 18: Dana White pictured during Zuffa Boxing Press Conference on day 3 of Fanatics Fest NYC on July 18, 2026 at Javits Center in New York City. Copyright: xmpi099/MediaPunchx

“It happened to me,” White recalled. “Vince McMahon did it to me for Ronda [Rousey]’s first wrestling match. I showed up at Will Call. I flew to f—– New Orleans, showed up at Will Call, they said, “Ahh, we have no tickets for you.”

The head honcho eventually made a few calls and got the situation sorted out, but the solution was hardly VIP treatment.

“They ended up getting me tickets; I’m in the f—— bleachers.”

And that wasn’t the only time Dana White and Vince McMahon ended up on the wrong side of each other. In fact, the UFC CEO has another pretty wild story about the former WWE boss, this time involving a deal that could have put the UFC on NBC back in 2011.

White claimed just last year that the UFC was close to landing a major broadcasting deal that would have seen The Ultimate Fighter air on USA Network. There was just one problem: McMahon reportedly had veto power over other combat sports programming on the channel.

So Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta made the trip to WWE headquarters to get McMahon’s blessing. According to White, they didn’t get it. McMahon refused to approve the UFC’s involvement.

So, the UFC’s deal with NBC ultimately went nowhere, forcing the promotion to pivot to FOX, where it would go on to land a landmark broadcasting partnership. And, in a pretty wild twist, the UFC and WWE eventually went from longtime rivals to corporate siblings after the formation of TKO Group Holdings.

For Dana White, though, those old battles with Vince McMahon are exactly why he says he’d never deliberately put someone else through the same kind of humiliation, not even someone he can’t stand.

“I’ve been through all that. I wouldn’t do that to even an enemy; I wouldn’t do that to anybody,” he added.

Oscar De La Hoya has continued to insist that he had good reason to worry about how he’d be treated at the Garcia-Benn event, even claiming members of his team were disrespected in the lead-up to the fight.

Reports later suggested that De La Hoya did have tickets; he just wasn’t given a ringside seat, something you’d probably expect for one of the promoters involved.

Dana White, however, wasn’t buying that version of the story. According to the UFC CEO, De La Hoya knew exactly what his setup was going to look like before he ever showed up.

“Oscar knew he had tickets, Oscar knew where he was sitting, Oscar was coming in the back like all the celebrities do, to the celebrity VIP area, and he knew all that,” White said. “I’m not saying in his mind he didn’t think, ‘These guys are going to do that.’ But let’s just be straight, up and open about that: I would never do that to anybody.”

Still, the UFC CEO’s latest explanation hasn’t exactly softened De La Hoya’s stance. If anything, the Golden Boy promoter has made it pretty damn clear where he stands. And when it comes to Dana White, he’s firmly backing one of the UFC CEO’s biggest rivals in boxing.

Oscar De La Hoya is siding with Eddie Hearn against Dana White

Still, White’s latest defense hasn’t exactly changed De La Hoya’s tune. If anything, Oscar has made it pretty clear whose side he’s on, and it’s not White’s. Instead, the Golden Boy promoter has firmly backed one of the UFC CEO’s biggest boxing rivals: Eddie Hearn.

White and Hearn have been going at each other for months, with the feud getting especially heated over the UFC head honcho’s push into boxing and his comments about the upcoming Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua showdown. Hearn has fired back at White’s claims repeatedly, only giving the UFC boss more fuel to keep the war of words going.

De La Hoya eventually jumped into the mess during an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show. And naturally, he didn’t exactly go easy on White. He questioned whether Zuffa Boxing was even the right fit for Ryan Garcia while also taking a shot at Dana White’s role within the company.

De La Hoya didn’t exactly hold back when asked about Dana White, either. He questioned whether the UFC CEO actually has as much power as people think before launching into a pretty brutal comparison.

“Dana White doesn’t know what he’s doing,” he said. “He’s not the guy that is in charge. He’s maybe like the third or fourth guy. He’s just Uncle Fester, who is right there in front of the camera. F—— can’t even give an interview because he’s f—— cursing at the reporters.”

And when the conversation turned to Dana White’s ongoing war of words with Eddie Hearn, Oscar De La Hoya made it clear whose corner he was standing in.

“I never thought I would say this, but I’m on Eddie’s side… I have to say I am Team Eddie right now because he’s cooking Dana,” he said.

So while Dana White insists he’d never go out of his way to embarrass De La Hoya at an event, Oscar De La Hoya clearly has no such problem when it comes to firing shots from the sidelines. The bad blood between the two promoters isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and the Mexican-American promoter seems more than happy to keep throwing fuel on the fire.

The post “I Wouldn’t Do That to Even an Enemy”: Dana White Reveals How Vince McMahon Embarrassed Him at a Ronda Rousey WWE Match appeared first on EssentiallySports.