Dana White ‘Beyond Disgusted’ by Bryce Mitchell’s Praise of Hitler But Won’t Punish Him: ‘Free Speech, I Don’t Have to Love It’
UFC president Dana White said he was “beyond disgusted” by featherweight fighter Bryce Mitchell praising Adolf Hitler on a podcast.
On a recent episode of Mitchell’s podcast Arkansanity, the 30-year-old was discussing Elon Musk’s controversial gesture when he somehow pivoted to speaking positively about the Nazi Germany dictator. Mitchell claimed Hitler “was a good guy” who simply wanted to “purify” Germany by “kicking the greedy Jews out that were destroying his country and turning them all into gays.” He then used that as a jumping off point to bash the LGBTQ community.
In response to the wildly hateful rant, White gave a statement at the start of his Power Slap press conference Thursday. He said:
So, before we get started here, let me get some fucking dumb shit out of the way first here. I’m out here having fun doing, Power Slap tonight, and I’m sure you guys heard what Bryce Mitchell said. If you haven’t said some, probably — I’ve heard a lot of dumb, ignorant shit in my day, but this one’s probably the worst.
When you talk about Hitler, he’s responsible for the death of six million Jews, and he tried to completely eliminate a race of people. World War II was the deadliest war in history. Fifteen million military deaths, 45 million civilians, and 25 million soldiers were killed in World War II.
Second of all, Hitler is one of the most disgusting and evil human beings to ever walk the face of the earth, and anyone that even tries to take an opposing position is a moron. That’s the problem with the internet and social media. You provide a platform for a lot of dumb, ignorant people. We’ve obviously reached out to Bryce; and when we read what he said and let him know how we feel about it, I don’t — we’re beyond disgusted. So, for those of you that don’t know what’s going on, good. You’re lucky. For those of you that do, that’s what I have to say about it.
When a reporter asked if he planned on punishing Mitchell for the comments, White reiterated his belief in free speech even if he strongly disagrees with the speech itself.
“That’s what everybody wants to hear about: punishment,” White said. “Free speech, I don’t have to love it. You don’t have to love it.
“You know where I am with free speech. We’re disgusted by it. I think he’s one of the probably one of the dumbest, literally one of the dumbest human beings. Let’s not forget that this is a guy who took a drill through his nut sack, then had to reverse it and pulled the drill back out of his — that’s the level of stupid that we’re talking about here, and I could probably go on for 10 minutes talking about how dumb Bryce Mitchell is.
“But guess what? Bryce Mitchell has a podcast… But that’s the world that we live in now. Dumb people, people who are really stupid and really ignorant, can have a voice. We don’t have to agree with it. We don’t have to like it.”
Watch above via Power Slap.
