Questions linger as to whether UFC will succeed or struggle under the leadership of WME-IMG, but UFC COO Lawrence Epstein insisted that the agency has "big plans for its new acquisition and that its impact will soon be felt," according to Kevin Iole of YAHOO SPORTS. After getting a new contract as part of the acquisition, UFC President Dana White has "largely avoided the media over the last several months." He has "routinely begun to skip post-fight news conferences and grants only a fraction of the interviews he once did." Meanwhile, UFC last week "announced widespread layoffs." Employees were "summoned to meetings with executives, told of their dismissals and then escorted by security to their cars." Epstein: "I really need to emphasize that the personnel changes had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the performance of those individuals who are no longer with us. What we essentially did when the deal closed is we laid out all the assets and the areas of expertise we added to the company and overlaid it to what we had. ... We took a look at what we had and what [WME-IMG] had and, as I said, there was some overlap there." Epstein added that WME-IMG is a "star-maker and will ultimately do that for many more UFC fighters." Epstein said "nobody is better at creating stars" than WME-IMG co-CEOs Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 10/27).
