Wife Slapper Dana White Has Suffered Enough?
Legal jurisprudence has a new standard and crime is now the punishment.
After last week’s piece something occurred that’s not so much the rule around here as it is the exception. A raft of emails from men who had done the very thing the piece railed against. They bore some measure of shame for rising to the provocation. In one other case the writer tried to hit me with the “c’mon, bro” entreaty, offering some explanation premised on what it was felt that a guy “like you” should be able to appreciate.
That is: if women and men are truly equal, then why and how did it make sense that, as a man, you couldn’t defend yourself against an assault? Surely hadn’t I ever been in a situation that fit this bill?
I have been kicked (once) by a partner, on the occasion of a break up. She claimed that the kick didn’t hurt me “that much” and I explained that if I hit her I could kill her. Probably. Moreover, why would either of us want to be in a relationship where we couldn’t do better than that? Other lovers have threatened to strike me in an effort to goad me into striking them, and again, it was clear that this would, indeed, mark the end of the relationship.
Then I remembered.
I was at Henry J. Kaiser, a concert venue, to see Motorhead play. It was October 10, 1986. A woman appeared in front of me as I worked my way to the front of the venue. Her name was Kris and she played bass in the band Intensified Chaos. She said something to me but over the music I could hear nothing and I performed the I-Can’t-Hear mime, hands to the ears.
Dana White’s response and the non-response of cover-seeking cowards at ESPN and Endeavor (formerly William Morris Agency) seem to be object lessons in personal and professional scumbaggery.
So, she repeated it. And I repeated the mime.
She repeated it again, this time with anger. I shrugged and attempted to move around her. She stepped in front of me and repeated it, even angrier, though at this point I sensed that we had wandered far afield of whatever had started off as some sort of greeting. She waved her hands, and bobbed her head from side to side, I could smell that she had been drinking and maybe she had confused me with someone else anyway.
I stepped around her again, and again she jumped in front of me, but this time with an extra, she shoved me. In hardcore, punk rock, metal shows of yore I had seen people stabbed on the dance floor with church keys. Gang stomped in the bathroom. I mention these just to say that violence here was routinely on the menu.
And also on the menu: me responding to violence with violence. My arms shot out in front of me and I shoved Kris back. In that moment my mind split. I could clearly see, with how significantly she had become airborne (her feet had left the ground), that there was a severe, qualitative difference in our shoves. I could also clearly feel, animal brain first and foremost, that I was about to leap on her to nullify the “threat”.
I was, no other way of putting it, about to choose to lose control. Which is, actually, different from losing control.
Enter Mr. Friction, he of the Diesel Queens and a one-time manager of my hardcore band Whipping Boy. He wove his arm through one of mine and steered me around and away from her saying very little more than “whoa…Eugene.”
Then later, “I got you, brother.”
And that was it. I never ever saw Kris again so couldn’t unburden myself by apologizing, and have never not felt like shit about it because though Kris was not someone I was in a relationship with I had, in general, liked her the few times that we had said hello to each other in passing. In fact, had UFC CEO Dana White not slapped the fuck, several times, out of his wife of some several decades on New Year’s Eve and this became a conversation I might have glided right by it.
But “by it” is why we’re here since Dana White’s response and the non-response of cover-seeking cowards at ESPN and Endeavor (formerly William Morris Agency) seem to be object lessons in personal and professional scumbaggery. The see-no-hear-no-speak-no corporate approach? The “hope it all blows over” deal? I get this.
It’s White whose novel defense caught my eye/ear though.
“Here's my punishment: I have to walk around for however long I live -- and this is how I'm labeled now,” said White an impromptu press conference. “My other punishment is that I'm sure a lot of people -- whether it be media, fighters, friends, acquaintances -- who had respect for me might not have respect for me now. There's a lot of things I have to deal with the rest of my life that's way more of a punishment than, what, I take a 30-day or 60-day absence?”
And THAT is it.
Though Endeavor’s stock dipped, and California politicos are demanding that White be punished, total corporate radio silence. That is outside of the Tweed Ring rondel where ESPN referred inquiring journalists to Endeavor, only to have Endeavor head them over to the UFC, where they were promptly bounced back to the above statement and ESPN public affairs.
Well played.
Jamahal Hill, Sean O’Malley and well, just about every one else, rushed headlong into the fray, taking a brief break from tonguing The Bald One’s nether regions to state, unequivocally that his burden would be one that they all share.
And now predictably in facing down well-intentioned journalist Brett Okamoto, White is back on the offensive, bullying all and sundry at last night’s press conference. Having admitted all fault, clarifying his actions as irredeemable, he’s confused what all of the hubbub is about, Bub.
His Professional Slap League, the debut of which was pushed back a week, not because he slapped the fuck out of his wife, several times, in public, while drunk, he’s quick to note, but because he couldn’t meet his press obligations because he was busy managing the fact that he had slapped the fuck out of his wife, several times, in public, while drunk.
Especially if by “managing” you mean repeatedly stating to whoever will listen that “I have to walk around for however long I live -- and this is how I'm labeled now.”
Meanwhile bank robbers, drug addicts and rapists globally are wondering if that was a jurisprudential unturned stone that they’d have been better off turning over. Because, after all, it must be infinitely worse to be a known murderer right? Imagine the shame. To have to live with that.
So, there, stands the great burden riding on the shoulders of Dana White, better known in these climes as The Bald One. Such a great burden that fighters knowing who butters their bread like Jamahal Hill, Sean O’Malley and well, just about every one else, rushed headlong into the fray, taking a brief break from tonguing The Bald One’s nether regions to state, unequivocally that his burden would be one that they all share.
And, oh yeah: they hate their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, daughters and wives too.
For those members of the Fourth Estate who are still in a position to ask, next time The Bald One asks, like he did Okamoto, what his punishment should be suggest this: a sizable donation to Women’s Crisis Centers that cater to beaten and abused victims of domestic violence, an anger management class, AA and, at bare minimum, a six-month cooling off period where daily business would be handled by his more than able, and non-wife-beating assistants.
At bare minimum.
[And because it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good…this all is just in time for one of my NEW podcasts: the twice monthly, 30 minute podcast BAD BOSS BRIEF. Subscribe and spend half of your lunch hour trying not to choke while laughing and mumbling to yourself “no he didn’t…”]
But to clarify and conclude I am reminded of when the poet/writer was asked by his semi-autobiographical girlfriend Wanda if he didn’t just hate cops and his response stuck with me: “Nooooo…but I just feel better when they’re not around.”
Likewise, I feel much better when I’m not being struck by people smaller than me, but justifying striking people back who are smaller than me seems to specifically be willing to stay in a place where I don’t feel good at all. So why do this? At all?
So let’s close with that poet immemorial of the Pacific Northwest, Sir Mixalot.
“Cause I never liked a punk who beat up on his girl. If you don't have game then let her leave your world.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
Having been on the receiving end of my 6'4" father's "slaps," I agree with you here and in last week's article. I figured out how to break the cycle with my kids, why couldn't my parents? Did I *have* to be assaulted physically? I never got arrested, preggers out of wedlock, or addicted to drugs... so was I *that* horrible? I still have no clue. :/