UFC President Dana White Defends Giving Pat Healy’s Bonuses To Bryan Caraway


UFC president Dana White is defending the controversial decision to give $130,000 in bonuses to Bryan Caraway after Pat Healy tested positive for marijuana at UFC 159 last month.

Healy initially defeated Jim Miller via technical submission due to a rear naked choke at 4:02 in the third round. However, the NJSAC overturned Healy’s victory when his test results came back, since marijuana is a banned substance. The move to give the bonus money to Caraway wasn’t very well received by UFC fans or fighters, including Nate Diaz, who was suspended for calling Caraway a gay slur on Twitter.

“There are f***ing rules,” White said at a UFC 160 pre-fight scrum Thursday. “Whether it’s TRT, didn’t get an exemption, whether it’s steroids, diuretics, whether it’s pain pills, there’s things that are banned substances. And whether you like it or not, marijuana is one of them. And somebody said, ‘they took 90-percent of his purse.’ We didn’t take f***ing zero from his purse. We took 100 percent of the bonus that he wasn’t eligible for.”

He went on to say that, while he didn’t think marijuana should be a banned substance because he didn’t think it was performance enhancing, his opinion didn’t matter.

“Every fighter knows that you go in, and you use marijuana, and you get caught, you’re busted,” he said. “Now the commission’s going to come in — they took that fight away from him — and he’s going to get fined by the commission. He wasn’t eligible for that bonus.”

White went on to say that while people may dislike Caraway for saying on Twitter that he hoped he would get the bonus after Healy forfeited his Submission of the Night honor, he deserved the money because he followed the rules.

“He had a submission that night, and he followed the rules. He absolutely, 100 percent deserves that bonus,” White said. “What would it say if I gave that kid $130,000 for testing positive for marijuana and the guy who followed the rules doesn’t get it?! How does that make sense?”

Do you think the UFC made the right decision giving Pat Healy’s bonus money to Bryan Caraway?

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