Nakisa Bidarian, the former UFC employee derided by Dana White as essentially being ‘just an accountant’, has hit out at the UFC President’s claims that poor ticket sales were the true reason for the short-notice cancellation of Jake Paul’s scheduled boxing match with Hasim Rahman Jr in Madison Square Garden this weekend.
It was announced days ago that the Paul-Rahman bout was off due to, Paul’s camp said, some funny business being pulled by Rahman Jr when it came to the agree weight they would meet in the ring at. But speaking post-fight at UFC 277 in Dallas last weekend, Dana White stated in no uncertain terms that the fight was canned amid very poor ticket sales at the notoriously expensive to operate arena in the heart of New York City.
White stated that just $1 million worth of tickets had been sold, and noted that it costs around $500,000 just to pay for the site’s energy needs during a high profile event — an assertion which was echoed by Eddie Hearn.
The UFC boss also couldn’t help but throw shade at Bidarian, who has assumed a high profile role in Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions group, saying: “I’m not going to sit up here and be happy or gloat that their fight fell out. Both those guys I’m sure put in a lot of hard work and a lot of training to get ready for this fight, spent money to get ready for this fight.
“I will say this, just because you were an accountant here doesn’t mean you know what the f*ck goes on here. It doesn’t mean you can run a fight promotion company. I think that Jake Paul probably needs to get some different people around him. If he’s going to stay in the sport, he needs to be with guys that really know how to put on fights.”
Bidarian, though, has fired back at White in their budding rivalry, and said in an Instagram Story Tuesday that poor ticket sales had nothing to do with the crumbling of Jake Paul’s latest attempt at boxing.
“Had zero to do with ticket sales,” Bidarian said, via MMA Fighting. “We already sold more tickets, more gate than Ryan Garcia just did at Staples Centre. We were going to be top 10 in gates since 2005 at MSG. Jake Paul was taking a big challenge. All of his fights have been from about 188 to 191 pounds, and all of his opponents — outside Nate Robinson — have been plus or minus one to two pounds of him. That’s all it is.”
And he couldn’t resist one last parting comment: “They can try and change the narrative, they can try to destroy what this young man has done,. I’m proud of him. He’s his own boss. He’s his own promoter, and I’m just an accountant. What’s up?”
