{"id":696366,"date":"2026-05-26T20:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/696366\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:12:09","slug":"dana-white-finally-reveals-the-one-fight-he-tried-to-book-for-ufc-white-house-but-couldnt-get-it-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/696366\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White finally reveals the one fight he tried to book for UFC White House \u2014 but \u2018couldn\u2019t get it done\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">UFC CEO Dana White tried to book current strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern against former 115-pound titleholder Weili Zhang for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-white-house-2026-fight-card-start-time-full-results-dana-white-conor-mcgregor-cbs-mma\/427538\/ufc-white-house-fight-card-start-time-date-and-location-freedom-250\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">upcoming UFC White House event<\/a> on June 14 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cWe did try to make a women\u2019s fight,\u201d White explained to <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/article\/2026\/05\/26\/dana-white-ufc-white-house-fight-interview\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TIME<\/a>. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">White claims Zhang, 36, is taking a break from fighting but did not say for how long.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cMagnum\u201d surrendered her title to move up in weight, but fell short of her quest to capture a second crown after a disappointing loss to reigning 125-pound champion Valentina Shevchenko <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-322-jack-della-vs-islam-makhachev-start-time-full-results-espn-mma\/403190\/valentina-shevchenko-vs-zhang-weili-live-fight-stream-ufc-320\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at UFC 322 last November<\/a>. Zhang (26-4) remains <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-mma-rankings\/443328\/sean-strickland-crashes-pound-for-pound-chart-ufc-328-rankings-update\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ranked at No. 1 in the strawweight division<\/a>, above Tatiana Suarez (No. 2) and Virna Jandiroba (No. 3).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Jandiroba lost to Dern in a fight for the vacant strap <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-events-ppv\/399331\/virna-jandiroba-issues-statement-following-ufc-321-title-fight-loss-i-was-never-a-coward\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at UFC 321<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC CEO Dana White tried to book current strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern against former 115-pound titleholder Weili Zhang&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,125620],"class_list":["post-696366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-white-house-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}