The good people at famed gentleman’s magazine Playboy have an interview with UFC prez Dana White in their September issue (which drops Friday, August 15) and one of the more interesting nuggets to come out of it are White’s remarks on what torpedoed the HBO deal:

“I pulled the plug at the 23rd hour. HBO was pi**ed off… I would have had to sell out, literally. They would have owned the UFC… I took meetings with HBO’s boxing guys. I’ll tell you, if I had to hear one more time about how many fu**ing Emmys they had won, I was going to dive out the window. I said ‘You won a bunch of Emmys, but I’m kicking your a** on pay-per-view.”

Awesome. Do I believe Dana White actually said that to HBO executives? Not really, but it’s still a good story. As much as people criticized him for not making the HBO deal happen, you have to respect his desire to maintain his autonomy, even if it means not blowing up big time with HBO’s Emmy factory.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dana White interview if he didn’t bash Tito Ortiz:

“That big-mouthed bit*h, that clown. Back when he had the title, he refused to fight Chuck Liddell. He sat on the sidelines for a year and a half, crying, ‘Aww, I don’t have any money!’ So I brought him back and made him a coach on The Ultimate Fighter. That year he made more than $6 million, yet he bit*hes about me. Well, I put up with Tito’s sh*t when he was a decent fighter, but now he’s not and I don’t have to… Did you see what a wall flower he was on [The Celebrity Apprentice]? The guy has no presence. He was the idiot hiding in the back. If he actually did something, people would know how stupid he is.”

There we go. Now I feel better. White also discusses Mark Cuban, Donald Trump, and a bunch of other stuff. That, plus the promise of naked women, makes it seem worthwhile to pick up a copy. Too bad it’s not the German version, which features naked women who are also Olympic athletes.