I've heard him twice refer to Babalu having won seven straight fights BEFORE his loss to Chuck - one of the time he said something to the effect of his record in his last 18 fights being 17-1.
But just check his record on Sherdog. He beat Elvis just before fighting Chuck, but lost to Kevin Randleman and Fedor Emelianenko in the two fights just before that.
He did win his first nine fights, but he had several losses between that winning streak and his fight with Chuck, including the losses mentioned above plus losses to Dan Henderson and Valentjin Overeem.
Dana certainly knows this - why is he reinventing Babalu's record? Isn't the ten fight win streak he's currently on impressive enough?
Well, the record they showed on the screen when he walked up for his weigh-in was 27-5, the same as the Sherdog record. If you take away his losses in Rings, he would only have two losses - to Liddell and Randleman.
Also, if you his Rings fights off his record, he'd only have six fights prior to his loss to Randleman.
And Dana should be well aware of Babalu's loss to Kevin Randleman - a loss that occurred in the UFC itself. This was UFC 35, so Zuffa had already been in control of the UFC for about a year.
"Isn't this technically true? The streak wasn't immediately before the Chuck fight, but it was before he fought Chuck."
No, it's still a lie of omission. Intent to deceive or give wrong impression (#2 below).
"lie2 (l?)
n.
A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression."
Also, as I mentioned before, I think this was edited from a longer clip in the UFC 62 Countdown show where he then goes on to claim that Babalu is 17-1 in his last 18 fights.
Or he could have simply been unintentionally mistaken, or provided with incorrect information. Either way I've been less than impressed with Dana white's public persona. A president should know the records of his fighters.
"Or he could have simply been unintentionally mistaken, or provided with incorrect information."
He could have been, but you have to go with the presumption that the president of the UFC is aware of and informed about the record of a guy fighting for the UFC title. Absent evidence to the contrary, it seems pretty obvious that he was engaging in a bit of puffery to benefit the UFC.
One can presume that he should, I'm just saying that from I don't think we have direct evidence from what he said tonight or on the countdown show to distinguish between whether he is intentionally lying or if he was just plain uninformed or provided with incorrect information. But like I said before, either way, it doesn't put him or the ufc in a very good light.
Well it was your question of "why is he reinventing Babalu's record? " that initally prompted my post but I'll stop splitting hairs and agree that either way Dana should have presented the right information.