Dana White responds after Stephen Thompson says he still hopes to be paid for canceled Michel Pereira fight: “You decided not to fight”

Dana White has taken aim at Stephen Thompson.

At UFC 291, Thompson was supposed to fight Michel Pereira but on weigh-in day, the Brazilian missed weight by three pounds. After some time negotiating, Thompson opted not to fight Pereira, which was his right after his opponent missed weight.

In the past, Stephen Thompson had fought opponents who missed weight and it didn’t work out well for him, so he thought Pereira was getting an advantage in not cutting down to 170lbs. However, after ‘Wonderboy’ declined the matchup, it was revealed he hasn’t been paid by the UFC, despite weighing in and making weight.

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Since then, Stephen Thompson has said he still hopes to get paid by the UFC. However, Dana White says there is a very good reason why he wasn’t paid.

Dana White responds to Stephen Thompson

“You decided not to fight, the guy was three pounds overweight, you get a piece of his purse if you take the fight… We also offered him another fight, there’s a much bigger story behind the scenes,” Dana White said about Stephen Thompson after the Contender Series. “No, you don’t just show up and say ‘yeah, I’m not going to fight, I want a quarter of a million dollars’, that’s not how it works, hasn’t worked that way for anybody. So, what we do is why try to get you another fight, try to turn you around quickly. If you don’t turn around quickly, then we try to figure out what did it cost for your camp? We’ll reimburse you, there’s a lot of different ways that this gets worked out.

“You don’t just go ‘yeah this guy’s three pounds over, I’m not going to fight and no, I won’t take another fight two weeks later and pay me my show money’ that’s not how it works,” Dana White continued about Stephen Thompson. “You don’t fight, you don’t get paid necessarily in the contract. But we always make sure that we take care of everybody and we’re working it out with Wonderboy right now. It’s all being worked out behind the scenes and this should all be worked out by Saturday.”

As of right now, it’s uncertain who Stephen Thompson was offered to fight as Dana White claims another opponent was provided. But it is pretty clear that Thompson and White are not seeing eye-to-eye over the ordeal.