Out of all the fights that might have been stinkers on the UFC 226 card, not many would have thought it would be the Francis Ngannou vs. Derrick Lewis heavyweight tilt that sucked. But suck it did, to the point that the most entertaining aspect was Rogan’s roasting of it.

Afterwards at the post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White had one word to describe the fight.

”Horrible,” he said.

As for who was to blame, he defended Derrick Lewis while throwing Francis Ngannou firmly under a big ol’ bus.

”I think that [Ngannou] had a pretty quick rise here and obviously the fight over Alistair Overeem catapulted him, everybody was talking about him,” White said. “I thought he was going to be the next [big] guy. I think his ego ran away with him, big time. I can tell you that his ego absolutely did run away with him. The minute that that happens to you in the fight game, you see what happens. You start to fall apart.”

”I had some personal encounters with him, as did other people in the organization, and this guy’s ego was just so out of control,” White continued. “It’s like, before the Stipe fight, he took off and went to France. Didn’t even really train for that fight. And you see the results. Well, he came back and did train [this time], but ego is what hurt Francis Ngannou.”

That’s two fights in a row now that White has buried Ngannou. It was a bit questionable following the loss to Stipe Miocic at UFC 220, but a bit more understandable now with White going more in depth on Ngannou’s decision to take a trip to France. (Just keep in mind, fighters, that White isn’t above revealing the intimate details of your camp if it takes place at the Performance Institute.)

And hey, I’m not about to defend Ngannou after the egg he laid in the cage tonight, but I do have to wonder whether this is just another example of Dana White burying a fighter the moment they no longer seem like the Next Big Thing. Your thoughts, Maniacs?