Dana White today told MMAjunkie.com that Lyoto Machida initially agreed to replace Phil Davis and fight Rashad Evans at UFC 133 before balking and demanding "Anderson Silva money" to step in on short notice.
"Machida accepted the fight, we knew for a couple days this was going down, and Machida accepted the fight. Then when we called back and said, 'OK, we're going to make this fight,' Machida's people came back and said, 'We'll tell you what. You pay us what you pay Anderson Silva, and we'll take the fight.' This was after they had already agreed to take the fight.
"I said, 'Are you ____ing kidding me? I'll tell you what. You tell Machida he achieves what ____ing Anderson Silva has achieved, then maybe he'll make Anderson Silva money. Have a nice day.'"
According to White, Machida's camp made it clear there was no fear or concern in the matchup. Instead, their strategy all came down to financial promises.
"They said, 'Machida will fly out there tomorrow if you pay him what you pay Anderson Silva,'" White said. "They said they do the deal, then I call back to make it and what's what they said."
