TORONTO -- English welterweight Dan (The Outlaw) Hardy's stomach tattoo was airbrushed out of the UFC 111 fight poster because it is "anti-Chinese government stuff," according to UFC president Dana White.
"I'm trying to get into China," he told fans at a question-and-answer session Tuesday. "I don't need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters."
Hardy, however, says the tattoo -- the fighter's favourite -- is a Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit.
"It's basically just like a prayer for focus," Hardy said. "It keeps me walking the path that I should be walking without veering off and distracting myself."
Apprised of that explanation, White said: "That's not what I heard."
"This thing popped up and I heard that it was anti-Chinese government, so I ripped that thing off it. I'm not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we're trying to get into China. . . . I don't what this stuff means, so I've got to be safe."
Hardy challenges Canadian Georges St-Pierre for his UFC welterweight title Saturday at UFC 111 in Newark, N.J.
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