Pay attention, because who knows when or if I’ll ever admit this again: Darren Till has a good point.It came on Tuesday’s edition of “The Ariel Helwani Show.” Discussing the current state of the UFC, where Till fought for seven years before exiting on a three-fight losing streak in 2022 and finding a comfortable home in the sport of boxing, the former title challenger decided to air some grievances.“I’m pissed off, to be honest, at the media side of things,” Till told Helwani. “Like, any time Dana [White]’s in a scrum, it’s like these reporters are scared to say the real thing. When they do ask questions, Dana’s all sort of like, ‘Who gives a s***?’ We give a s***.

I give a s***, so give us a f***ing answer baldy, and take your ego away.”White has been leaning on these “who gives a s***?” type of answers a lot lately. It’s basically become a mantra. The unstated part is also the part that’s most glaringly self-evident.

Any time someone hits you with that “who gives a s***” response? What they are telling you is that the list of people who might give a s*** does not include them. It’s just a more aggressive way of saying, “I don’t care.”Which, OK, message received.

The UFC CEO does not care. Shouldn’t he, though? Isn’t that kind of a big part of the job?Mat Hayward via Getty ImagesTo be clear, two of White’s most recent “who gives a s***?” moments came in response to questions about: 1) The differing narratives about why Jon Jones isn’t fighting Alex Pereira on the UFC White House card, and 2) fans online expressing some mixture of anger and annoyance with the UFC’s obvious use of AI to put together pre-fight promos. (Though, if you want to go slightly further back in time, it was also his response to a question about eye-pokes right after a heavyweight title fight was ruined by one so egregious that the champ is still out of action six months later.)The whole Jon Jones issue, I don’t know, kind of seems like White should give a s*** about that.

We are, after all, talking about a potential (interim) heavyweight title fight on what’s supposed to be the biggest UFC event of the year and, depending on which hype you believe, THE MOST HISTORIC SPORTING EVENT OF ALL TIME. Jones vs. Pereira would have been a fittingly huge fight for that card.

White said he’d never allow Jones to be in that position. Jones said the UFC wanted him in the fight but he declined due to the lowball offer. The end result is we’re getting Pereira vs.

Ciryl Gane, a fight that fans are far less interested in, so yeah, that might be worth giving a s*** about.The AI thing is a hot-button topic for different reasons. The whole idea of a pre-fight promo is to get fans excited for an upcoming event. Instead, this one got fans wondering why the UFC couldn’t be bothered to shoot a real promo using the real human beings it’s trying to hype us up about.

UFC fighter Renato Moicano, in an appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show,” called it “disrespectful to the fans,” which sounds about right.Again though, White does not give a s***. Which, when you put it that way, also seems pretty disrespectful to the fans.Contrast that with these comments from UFC chief content officer Craig Borsari, who was asked about the UFC’s use of AI in a recent interview:“The way we look at AI is not a substitute for content creation, but rather a way to amplify it. So if there are things that we can do utilizing AI, it’s no different than maybe using a green screen.

I mean, it’s a technique and technology that is evolving at an incredible rate, and I like to tell my team, if we’re not pushing the envelope and looking for different ways to do things and storytelling, then we’re not doing our jobs. So the last thing I want my team to be is stagnant and play on our heels and play it safe.”See that? While I think you could take issue with some of those points — the UFC White House promo did not push a single envelope; it just did what a regular promo would have done much cheaper, with fewer actual humans, and a noticeably sloppier result — at least there are points to take issue with.

At least he’s participating in the conversation.UFC Promos: Then vs. Now pic.twitter.com/sLdMizZM4s— Drake Riggs (@DrakeRiggs_) April 21, 2026White can’t be bothered these days. As Till put it, he’s “totally switched off” from the UFC.

He seems utterly complacent and mostly disinterested. That word Borsari used — stagnation? Yeah, that’s a good way to describe it.

But under TKO ownership, the UFC makes more money than ever before, so who gives a s***, right?That seems to be the core of the fan frustration right now, not just with the UFC but also with the WWE, another TKO-owned property. If you followed any of the WrestleMania 42 discourse, you might have heard longtime fans lamenting how much time and space was given over to advertising instead of wrestling. The money machine continues to crank out shareholder value, and as long as it does there’s the sense that fans and media can’t tell the corp