Dana White has issued a mea culpa after the UFC appeared to erase former heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou from its history as part of a recent promotional package.

As part of a promo video ahead of last weekend’s UFC 305 title fight between African-born fighters Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya, the UFC production team drew the ire of Adesanya for apparently removing Ngannou’s name from a prior statement he made about UFC champions of African lineage: Adesanya himself, Kamaru Usman and Ngannou.

The edit came after Ngannou departed the UFC as its heavyweight champion after failing to agree terms on a new deal, later signing a big-money contract with the PFL and taking part in two high profile boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

But speaking on Tuesday in Las Vegas, White said that the move to edit Ngannou’s name out didn’t come from him — but that he takes full responsibility for it due to his role as chief overseer of UFC content.

“If that’s true and that was done and it was something we produced, then somebody in the company made that decision,” White said.

“Listen, you know me, if I said we did it, I’d say ‘Yeah f*ck him this is why we did it’, I know nothing about it, nobody ever asked me about it and this is the first we’re hearing about it.

“My production team are a bunch of rock stars and they are truly f*cking awesome. I make it so hard on them sometimes with some of the crazy sh*t I say and it’s tough. When you asked me about that, I didn’t know anything about it.

“But someone was editing that and made a conscious decision, thinking that was the right thing to do, that that’s what we would have wanted, what I would have wanted. I didn’t know about it and that was nothing that ever came across my desk.

“I’m in charge of everything production-related, so at the end of the day, the fact it happened falls on me 100 percent. It’s my responsibility and I accept it. Blame me for that. But that’s on me. Totally on me. I already called Israel Adesanya and apologised for it.”