Habib beat Conor.
Putin was on FaceTime before he even made it to the locker room.
Trump, sitting president, ex-president, watching all the fights, calling, wants to talk about
the fights.
Valentina Shevchenko, every time she goes home, she meets with the president of the country.
The list goes on and on and on.
The most powerful Elon Musk, Zuckerberg.
I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
The most powerful people in the world are all obsessed with fighting.
The following is a conversation with Dana White, the president of the UFC, a mixed martial
arts organization that revolutionized the art, the sport, and the business of fighting.
And Dana is truly the mastermind behind the UFC.
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Dana White.
Do you remember when you saw your first fight?
I think so.
I remember being at my grandmother's house, and I think it was an Ali fight, and all my
uncles were going crazy during the fight, and there was just this buzz and this energy
in the house that I liked at a very young age.
And I'm pretty sure that was my first fight.
Ali was something special.
Yeah, incredible.
I mean, when you look around, not just here in the office, but at my house, Ali and Tyson
are everywhere.
Would you put Ali as the greatest of all time, boxing?
Well, I would put Ali as the greatest of all time human being.
I mean, it's easy as a fight fan to focus on him as a fighter, but when you focus on him
as a human and you think about what he meant at that time and place, the things he said,
the poems he came up with, just the overall brilliance of Muhammad Ali, the guts, the guts
to have the strength mentally, physically, and emotionally to go against the grain at
the time that he did it, it was a very dangerous time for him to be who he was.
Yet, because of how smart he was, and because of his personality, and how if you sat down
with him, you could be the biggest racist on the planet, it's hard to get in a room with
Ali and not like Ali.
Yeah, he's all love, humor, all of it.
Yeah, 100%.
And had the guts in the ring, and the guts to take a stand.
100%.
When it was hard.
He might be one of the all-time greatest humans, you know what I mean?
Just an impactful, powerful human being who happened to be a great boxer.
And sometimes the right moment meets the great human being, that's important.
I agree with you, and he was the right guy in the right place at the right time, and he's
also a guy who used his platform for all the right things.
So that might have been your first fight, but when did you fall in love with fighting?
The art of it, the science of it?
Yeah, I would say I really fell in love with it.
So I was a senior.
It was 1987, and Hagler Leonard happened.
Yeah.
And I watched that fight, and I taped it, and I watched that fight like a million times.
I was a huge, huge Hagler fan, and I like Sugar Ray Leonard too, but I was a huge Hagler
fan.
And I just remember, I watched that fight a million times because I was pissed off, and
I felt like Hagler got robbed in the fight, you know what I mean?
But that was really what made me start to love the sport of boxing.
The battle of it.
Yeah.
I was 17.
And then after that, USA's Tuesday Night Fights came out on television.
It was on every Tuesday night.
Religiously, never missed Tuesday Night Fights.
I was there, watched all those fights, and a lot of the things you see in the UFC, not
necessarily just the production, but I would say the feel and the style and all those things
are all things that I, things that I loved about boxing and things that I hated about
boxing, right down to the commentary.
You loved and hated?
Hated the, yeah.
Hated the commentary.
Certain things that I loved about boxing, I incorporated into the UFC.
Things that I hated about boxing, I made sure that the UFC stayed far away from.
I think I can't stand Larry Merchant.
Can't stand Larry Merchant.
And I used to watch HBO Boxing and mute the commentary so that I didn't have to listen
to them.
Lampley too.
So, you know, you would spend this money for the pay-per-view to watch these people that
you idolized to hear these idiots rip them apart while the fight was happening, you know?
Oh, they were criticizing.
Yeah, 100%.
Or taking them apart.
I've gotten used to the UFC, so I don't, I'm trying to remember looking back.
It was bad.
It was bad?
It was really bad.
But the sweet science, the art of boxing was beautiful still.
Like, the stories they told.
I want to do this with you right now.
Hey, we bring your cell phone over here and pull up YouTube.
I want to do this for you so that you can understand this and understand where I was coming from.
For the commentary.
Yeah, at this point in time.
I have all good memories.
You're going to ruin it for me.
Yeah, no, there are nothing but great memories about boxing, but the presentation and a lot
of the things, but it's, how fucking weird is it that I even cared about this shit at
that point in my life and that time in my life?
Like, what impact could I possibly have on it?
So think about Tyson and how much everybody loved Tyson at the time and want to listen
to this, listen to this entrance.
Of the former undisputed heavyweight champion.
And here he comes, Mike Tyson, as he heads toward the same ring he made his distraceful
exit in June of 96.
Wow.
One of the baddest motherfucking walk-ins of all time, by the way.
Right?
So what this guy should be doing, and this is one of the Albert brothers.
Yeah.
Shut the fuck up.
Yeah.
Stay out of the way.
Yeah.
Maybe build them up.
Or that.
Or don't say anything.
Just let the fans.
That's why.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why we paid our money.
You don't need to say anything.
Scary, imposing music.
Will he be able to intimidate his opponent tonight?
Will it even matter?
I really thought there'd be more of an explosion by the crowd here, but very mixed.
Even with the win tonight, no matter how one started, he will still have his detractors
following the two fights with Holyfield.
His stock plummeted.
The pundits came down hard, feeling they were duped, and his knockouts were over.
Second-rate fighters.
Now the crowd erupts more as he gets into the ring.
But it's certainly nothing overwhelming.
What a dick.
You're right.
I don't remember that.
You're right.
Imagine.
You're right.
You paid your money to watch Mike Tyson, and you got to listen to these fucking jerk-offs
talk shit about them the whole way to the, right?
First of all, one of the coolest walk-ins ever.
You know, the first time anybody had heard DMX, right?
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, he's walking into some scary, imposing music.
Will it even matter whether, you know, it's just all that kind of stuff.
I, I do literally used to analyze every ounce of the production that would happen on television.
And, uh, at a time when I didn't even know why I was doing it, but.
But it's in there somewhere, like you were thinking about it.
Right.
So, yeah, I hated HBO, uh, commentary.
I thought, you know, at the time, HBO boxing was obviously the gold standard for, you know,
but when you really think about boxing at that time, their production, the only thing that
changed over 30 years was like HD.
I mean, even the commentators were the same for, for 30 years.
And then you had the time when Larry Merchant gets up and literally starts fighting with
Floyd Mayweather during the interview and says, if I was 30 years younger, I'd kick your
ass right now.
Oh yeah.
I remember that.
Yeah.
I mean, these are the interviews that we have to listen to when we're trying to watch a boxing
match.
The level of boxing was good.
Think about a fighter, right?
Fighter has been gone for months away from their families and away from everything.
Training, training, cutting weight, sparring.
Then they go in and they have to fight that night.
And then you have to, you know, if you watch your fight back, you got to listen to this
bullshit from these guys.
And then, and then you get interviewed and your interview is, is this, it's just.
And it's not just about the pay-per-view money.
It's about like, these are legends of humanity.
Like we should celebrate the highest form of like accomplishment.
100%.
Because these aren't like Mike Tyson.
So you know who goes in there and interviews fighters?
Joe Rogan, right?
Yeah.
Who, who has trained and, and, and, and, and done everything and has the utmost respect for
the sport and the athletes.
Or you got like Daniel Cormier, who was a former world champion himself and has actually
been through it, done it, knows.
And those are the type of people that we put in the booth, people that are actually experienced
in it.
Not, not, not, not these people who've never been in a fight in their fucking life.
Right?
Yeah.
But they're also both, DC and Rogan are like big kids.
They love it.
100%.
They love it.
Well, everybody does.
I mean, if you look at it, it's, it's the difference between our commentary and what
I feel their commentary was.
We don't hire paid talking heads.
We hire people that have actually been in it, done it, love it.
And are super, super passionate about the sport.
And, and I would say that none of them that ever covered the sport back then were, I don't
know if that was Marv Albert or what Albert brother that was, but he sounded like he's a
fan of the sport or anyway, you got me, you, you got me on this and I lose my mind.
Maybe we wouldn't, we wouldn't have a UFC if they didn't fuck it up so bad.
And for the Tyson, it would be different.
You're not wrong.
You're not wrong.
It would be different.
There's no doubt about it.
All those experiences growing up being a boxing fan helped create what the UFC is today.
You know, it's interesting because humans have been fighting for millennia and it seems
like with the UFC, the rate of innovation is just insane.
In these last three decades, it seems like we've discovered how to do unarmed combat faster
and better than, than at any time in human history.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
The first UFC happened in 1993, right?
Martial art versus martial art.
Yeah.
And now over the last 30 years, martial arts has evolved faster than, you know what I mean?
And, and, and like you just said, combat sports, fighting, whatever you want to call it, martial
arts, it has evolved so much in 30 years, more than the last 300 years.
What did you think when you saw UFC one with hoists?
I remember everybody talking that this fight was going to happen and there was going to
be no rules and all this other stuff.
And we're like, there's no way that's bullshit.
And then we ended up at some guy's house that night in Boston and watching it and it was
happening and it was fun and it was exciting and everything else.
And then, uh, and then I sort of fell off after that.
The first one I, I watched, but I was too big of a boxing fan.
Plus once grappling started taking over and, you know, by grappling, meaning the wrestling
and the, and, and the jujitsu guys had just laid there, you know, I, I completely lost
interest.
It's funny that, that I'm having this conversation with you right now because last night I was
out last night with my friends and we were talking about, um, cause one, one of my buddies
who's a host here in town just did jujitsu for the first time.
Nice.
Yesterday.
Yeah.
And he was like, did he get his ass kicked?
Yeah.
But when you first go in, our first jujitsu lesson, me, Lorenzo and Frank was with John
Lewis and I remember thinking, holy shit.
I, I, I can't believe that I'm, you know, 28 years old and this is the first time I'm
experiencing this, that, that another human being could do this to me on the ground.
It is such an eyeopening, mind blowing experience when you do it for the first time and then you
become completely addicted to it.
And, you know, we were training three, four days a week trying to kill each other.
And, and, uh, me and the Fertittas and that's how we fell in love with the sport.
I think that first time that you do jujitsu, it's like the red pill and the blue pill in
the matrix.
Do you want to believe that this is the world that you live in or do you want to see what
the real world looks like?
Just as a real red pill.
It really is.
You realize, holy shit, all that shit talking I've been doing about me being a badass, you
realize you're not, you get dominated by another human being and you realize, no.
And I mean, dominate, I mean, completely treat you like you're a little kid.
Yeah.
Um, and then we had the opportunity to roll with a lot of different guys at the time because
of the whatever.
And we don't have a good relationship at all, but I'll tell you this, Frank Shamrock came
in one day and Frank Shamrock had me in, uh, side control.
The pressure that this guy put on my chest made me tap.
Yeah.
Felt like there was a car on my chest and with zero effort from him, it was absolutely effortless.
And when you, when you train with somebody that's at such a level when you're not, it
just, it is the most humbling, mind blowing experience you can have, especially as a man,
but as a human being.
Do you remember just for fun?
Do you remember like what your go-to submission was?
Yeah.
So, uh, you know, when we first started out and started doing it, I had a pretty good
guillotine in the beginning.
So I'd catch a lot of people in guillotines and.
Are you okay being on like on bottom?
So like, yeah, I was okay with the bottom.
Yeah.
I was okay with being on bottom.
I was comfortable there, but you know what?
I never liked.
I never liked gi.
Like we started fucking around with a gi in the beginning.
We would, you know, that's how we started.
And then once I took the gi off, I felt like I had no submissions cause I couldn't grab onto
anything.
So I, after that, I went all no gi and I never wanted to wear a gi.
And it's fascinating cause no gi has become big now.
And there's a lot of interesting people.
Like I trained with Gordon Ryan and like the level there is just fascinating.
It's become like the science and it looks like fighting now.
It looks more like fighting as opposed to with the gi.
Sometimes it doesn't quite look like fighting.
Right.
And I feel like it's transferable to actual like MMA fighting, no gi stuff.
Or street.
Street.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, if you're, if, if you start off in your first year, you're in a gi, man, you
better hope guys got like winter jackets on or something.
That's something that happens in the street.
Cause it, in my opinion, I know all the jujitsu fucking people are going to go crazy over
this, but in my opinion, no gi is way better than gi.
That said, I also do judo.
So in the street scenario, if you're comfortable on the feet and you can clinch and you can
throw, you can, because most of us wear clothing, especially in Boston, the new winter setting.
So if you're comfortable on the feet, you could still do well there.
The problem with jujitsu is most people are not comfortable on the feet, the sport of jujitsu.
Most people kind of want to get to the ground as quickly as possible.
So what'd you think of hoist at that time?
Like in the early, like what, cause it blew a lot of people's minds that there's like
more to this puzzle.
A hundred percent.
And the fact that you had, um, like these guys, like Ken Shamrock that were jacked, right.
And you had all these wrestlers or, you know, the big, massive guys that they had in the
different weight classes.
And this skinny little dude, like hoist was out there beating everybody.
I mean, if you look at the way that the Gracie's played that, you couldn't have a better advertisement
for, for Gracie jujitsu at the time.
But also like for MMA, because there's just like a lot of surprising elements.
A lot of people's prediction was wrong.
Right.
They didn't think the skinny guy would win.
And they're like, oh shit, there's more to this.
What's the real beautiful thing about jujitsu?
It's like when you talk about, if you wanted to get your daughter into a martial art, should
I put my daughter into karate?
Should I put her into this?
You put your daughter into jujitsu a hundred percent because it's not about size or strength.
It's about technique.
And you give your daughter a bunch of jujitsu and a little bit of Muay Thai, you know?
Yeah.
She becomes dangerous.
It's like the perfect combo.
Yeah.
Cause you can put your son into anything.
Your son can get into some, you know, boys are going to learn how to fight and they're
going to do whatever, but girls are, girls are different.
And the other thing, I mean, this is the biggest selling point for jujitsu for women.
I mean, when a woman, no matter how big, how small can put a guy to sleep in three and
a half seconds.
What's the origin story of the UFC as it is today, as you have created it and you and
Lorenzo and Fertino brothers built it?
It started with, with John Lewis, you know, and, and, and seeing him, Frank and I were
out one night at the hard rock and John Lewis was there and he's like, oh, that's that ultimate
fighting guy.
And I was like, I know him.
And Frank's like, I've always wanted to learn, uh, ground fighting.
And I said, yeah, I'm interested in it too.
So we went over, we talked to John Lewis and we made an appointment to wrestle with him
on Monday and we told Lorenzo and Lorenzo came with us.
And, uh, that was the beginning of the end.
I mean, we, we started doing jujitsu and, and started to meet a lot of the fighters.
And we were like, you know, at the time there was a stigma attached to the sport that these
guys were, you know, despicable, disgusting human beings, but which was the furthest thing
from the truth.
These, these kids, uh, had all gone to college, had college degrees, most of them, cause they
wrestled in college and we started to meet some that we love the different stories.
You had Chuck Liddell who, you know, had this Mohawk looks like an ax murderer and, uh, but
graduated from Cal Poly, uh, you know, with honors and accounting, you know, then you had
Matt Hughes, who was this farm boy, you know, literally lived on a farm.
And so there were all these cool stories with all these good people that weren't what people
thought they were.
And Lorenzo and I always felt like there's something here that if this thing was done
the right way, this could be big.
And what was crazy was I, uh, I was in a contract negotiation with Bob Meyerowitz, the old owner
of the UFC over Tito's contract.
Um, and Chuck Liddell, they didn't even want Chuck Liddell in the UFC.
I was trying to get Chuck in the UFC and they didn't even want them.
Wow.
And we got into this contract dispute over Tito's contract and Bob Meyerowitz said, you
know what?
There is no more money.
Okay.
I don't even know if I'll even be able to put on one more event.
And he like flipped out.
When we hung up the phone, I literally picked up the phone and called Lorenzo and I said,
Hey, I just got off the phone with Bob Meyerowitz, the owner of the UFC.
I think they're in trouble and I think we could buy it.
And I think we should, you should reach out to him.
Um, so Lorenzo, uh, Lorenzo called Meyerowitz and I don't know how, I don't remember the
timeline, but within the next two months we ended up owning the UFC for 2 million bucks.
And, uh, you've said that you fought a lot of battles during that time.
Oh, I mean the early days of, of building this company and building the sport, it was
the wild, wild West, man.
It was, it was crazy back then.
Um, yeah, I was literally at war every day with all different types of people.
Plus traditionally there's bad people that are involved in, in fighting, man.
There's lots of bad people.
And we had to sift our way through that for the first seven, eight years.
So in general, there's like corruption and the people kind of steal money.
They're thinking just about themselves, not the bigger business.
Let me tell you about this.
I mean, I want to say it was the Netherlands.
I don't remember exactly where it could have been Amsterdam.
I mean, MMA promoters were like car bombing each other.
And then the other guy shot up the other guy's house with machine guns.
And that's the kind of shit that was going on.
I'll tell you the story.
So affliction, do you remember affliction?
Yeah.
So there was a guy I want to say, I want, I want to say the name was Tom, Todd Beard
or something like that.
This guy used to text me every day when they were, when they started their MMA thing,
telling me he was going to kill me.
Like legitimately death threats?
Legitimately going to kill me.
Yeah.
You punk motherfucker.
I'm going to fucking kill you.
You don't understand who I am and what I've done and this and that.
I think this guy would get drunk or do drugs every night or whatever his deal was.
This guy would call me, text me and threaten my life every day.
I used to go, fuck you.
And this and that.
You said fuck you.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
Especially back then.
Yeah.
But yeah, but I mean, this is the type of shit that went on in the early days.
This guy, this guy who was one of the owners of affliction was like one of the, you know,
not a good human.
Let's put it that way.
What about the business side of it?
It's tough to make money in this business.
Yeah.
We weren't making money.
So, you know, trying to build this thing, corrupt, uh, corrupt, uh, the guys that work
for in demand pay-per-view at the time, uh, we're not good dudes, you know, and that thing
was a fucking total monopoly.
God, I wish I could remember his name right now.
He used to run in demand and he was a fucking bad guy.
Then he, then he comes over and starts running direct TV who we always had a great relationship
with and he's the reason we left direct TV and said, fuck it.
We'll just go streaming then.
Yeah.
I don't remember his name.
I'd have to ask Lorenzo.
So in general, just in this whole space, there's a lot of, yeah, it's just shady people.
Everybody you deal with is dealing with a lot of, a lot of, a lot of different forces
and, and, and your, your, your hands are in a lot of different businesses, uh, you know,
from the venue business to the merchandise business, to the video game business, uh, the
pay-per-view business, you know, the list goes on and on of all the different types
of the production business of all these different, you know, when I first started this, I, uh,
we had a production team that was the production team that was in it before we bought it.
So there was this, there was this incident with Phil Barone where Phil Barone, we did
an interview with him and Barone flips out in the interview when they're interviewing
him and goes crazy.
And I thought it was awesome.
So I'm like, we're going to leave this in, we're going to leave this interview in.
And the, and the production guys were arguing with me.
They're like, we can't leave this in.
This is totally unprofessional.
And I said, I don't give a shit.
This is, this is what we're doing.
We're going to, we're going to do this and clip it like this and do it like that.
We're sitting in the venue that night.
And I lean over to Lorenzo cause the fight's coming up.
I go, wait till you see this fucking interview with Barone.
They didn't fucking do it.
They didn't do it.
These guys were guys that were freelance guys that work for Showtime at the time or
one of the, something like that.
I literally went, got up from my fucking seat, went back there, kicked the fucking door
of the truck open.
And I said, you motherfuckers, you ever do that again?
And then I'll fire every fucking one of you.
Let's just put it this way.
I ended up firing every one of them anyway, and going with a whole new crew.
But these were the type of things that early on, you know, there's so much stuff.
I mean, I could sit here for fucking three days and walk you through all the stuff that
used to go on back in those days.
But it was the wild, wild west, man.
But how'd you figure out, how'd you know how to deal with all this mess?
First of all, to fire people, to fire people that aren't doing a good job, all of that.
Like how to be a leader, how to be.
Well, that's the thing too.
I mean, getting in the early days, there was two employees, me and another girl that worked
for me, for my company before I started doing this.
And then we slowly started to bring people on and you start to build a team.
And then before you know it, we had 10 people.
I mean, we used to do our Christmas parties back then too.
There'd be eight to 10 people at our Christmas party, you know?
But a lot of it is you'll learn as you go.
You know what me and the Fertittas knew about production when we bought this UFC?
We had like, I want to say we had two or three weeks to pull off an event.
This is what we knew about production.
Really?
Jack shit.
So we had to dive in and we had to learn it.
We had to figure it out.
And we knew what we wanted.
We knew what we liked.
We knew what we were looking for.
It's just about building a good team.
And I think that's one of the things, if you want to talk about what I've accomplished in
the last 25 years of my life, I've been really good at building teams.
You already have a vision of what you want the final thing to look like and then build
a team that can bring that to life.
100%.
Well, you have to have the vision.
Without the vision, there's nothing.
So that's sort of what I do.
I am the vision part of this thing.
We're going to open a PI in Mexico.
We're going to do this.
We're going to do that, you know?
And then you build the team to come in and help execute.
A lot of people that do fighting promotions fail.
You succeeded against long odds.
What's the secret to your success?
If you were just looking back over the years.
Well, the secret to success, I would say, first of all, is passion and consistency.
You have to love what you do.
You have to get up every day.
I get here every day at 9.30 in the morning.
When we sold in 2016, a lot of people in the company made a lot of money and they all
took off and they retired, right?
Other than the Fertittas, I made the most money.
I'm still here.
I get here at 9.30 every morning.
Last night, I left here at 8.30, you know?
And I don't know how late I'm going to be here tonight, but I love what I do.
We get up every day and grind.
I work just as hard now as I did back then.
The difference between back then and now is I don't have to do a bunch of the shit that
I don't really like to do, like budget meetings.
I don't like budget meetings.
I sat through enough fucking budget meetings.
Horrible budget meetings.
Horrible.
We're losing millions of dollars a year and I'm in these budget meetings.
So I get to pick and choose what I do these days.
Back in the early days, you don't get to pick and choose.
You have to be involved in everything.
Yeah.
So costs.
You're just looking at costs.
A hundred percent.
You literally go through line by line every fucking number in the company and where did
the money go and how can we save costs?
How can we do this better?
How can we, you know?
You know, they are, they are brutal and they're multiple times a week and.
Probably helps to deeply appreciate how much the shit costs though.
A hundred percent.
Well, you have to know that.
Yeah.
In the early days, when you start your business, you have these people who, when I hear them
say, you know what?
I, uh, I want to work for myself.
I want to create my own schedule and I want to do all that.
It's just, it's, if that's your thought process going into it, you're never going to be successful.
You have to pay attention to every single detail of the business early on.
You're involved in everything.
There's no days off.
There's no birthdays.
There's no fucking Christmas.
There's none of that shit.
I literally moved the birth of my second son for a chocolate L fight.
We had a chocolate L fight coming up and I, and they're like, yeah, your son's going to
be born on this date.
And I'm like, yeah, that's not going to work.
We're going to have to take them earlier.
Yeah.
So they literally gave my wife a C-section and, and, and took my son early.
You're all in.
All in.
Yeah.
And, uh, the fascinating thing, like you said, you, uh, you've said that you could care less
about money.
You're doing this for, for the love of it.
Yeah.
I was doing this when I was broke and I'm doing this now and I'm not broke.
I'm doing this because I love it.
And I, and I, I feel like there's so much more to do.
And this is truly my passion in life.
It's like the sphere.
We're doing the sphere.
Why?
Why would I do this sphere?
It's going to cost me a bunch of money.
It's, it's, it's really challenging.
Um, most people think it can't be pulled off and, uh, you're looking at weird angles,
different things going on inside other than the fight and all this other stuff.
But yeah, I'm doing it because it's awesome and it's challenging and it's hard.
And I think that if anybody can do it right, it's us.
So why not take that challenge?
It's actually why I'm here.
I'm going to this sphere for the first time.
Cause I'm hanging out with Darren Aronofsky who put together the thing that's in there
now.
And I can't believe you're thinking of, I don't know how you're going to solve that
puzzle.
There's many puzzles to solve for this one.
Okay.
Many puzzles.
Uh, so how can you speak to that?
Like what, uh, are interesting challenges that you're encountering?
Yeah.
So there's a lot.
So you have the octagon, right?
And then behind it is the world's biggest screen ever.
Right.
So what is the theme?
How do you program it?
First of all, it's super expensive to shoot and, and, and, uh, you know, the format for
the sphere, um, angles we were talking about, uh, today, I just had a big meeting today,
um, about the sphere this afternoon and making sure that all my departments, all the details
that I want, I'll start to come together here in the next two weeks.
I want the creative, the commercial.
I have some goals.
I will tell people as we get closer, what I'm looking to achieve with this other than
putting on one of the greatest, most unique sporting events of all time, and probably
the greatest combat sporting event of all time.
Um, but yeah, there's, I mean, there's challenges.
There's a laundry list of challenges for this thing.
And not to mention the fact that it's on independent, uh, Mexican independence day and we're going
to weave in the whole history of combat in Mexico.
Yeah.
And this is that.
So, but the production, I mean, this is hilarious because you were just talking about knowing
nothing about production.
So many years tackling the sphere, the hardest production effort ever.
And that will be live.
It'll be live.
It'll be live on pay-per-view.
It'll be live in the arena and it will also be in movie theaters.
Nice.
So there'll be a, it'll be shown, we'll be shown at the sphere later too.
Like will you try to create an experience?
ESPN is doing a doc on it.
Nice.
The making of the sphere.
Yeah.
Are you feeling good about it?
Oh yeah.
I feel incredible about it.
I can't wait.
It's going to be, it's going to be fun.
I can't wait to see how you solve the puzzle.
So thank you.
Another guy that I feel like could care less about the money is Joe Rogan.
How important is he to the UFC, to the rise of the UFC?
And what in general do you love about Joe?
It's a fact.
He doesn't care about money.
And he did the first 13 shows for free for us.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
That was at a time when we were hurting and he's like, wait a minute, you want me to do
the commentary?
You're saying that I get to sit in the best seat in the house and watch these fights for
free?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm in.
So, um, and then obviously when we turn things around, we, we made it up to Joe, but Joe is
one of the things that I loved early on about, so I'll tell you the story.
So we buy the UFC, um, they're based in New York.
We're, we're moving the, the, the corporate offices to Vegas.
So I have to fly out to New York, go into the offices and, and, uh, start going through
everything and figuring out what needs to come back to Vegas and what we can just throw away.
So they literally had a VHS machine and a TV and there were a million tapes in this place,
man.
So I didn't know what tapes were that these definitely would have to keep or these we
don't need.
So I had to sit there and go through every single tape and I popped in a tape and there
was an interview on the ivory Keenan weigh-in show, right?
The oldest weigh-in's brother and he had a talk show at the time and he had Joe Rogan,
the guy from fear factor on the show and he was promoting fear factor, but all he would
talk about was UFC and he was talking about how people think that these guys in the martial
arts movies are, are tough and could, and he was talking about what UFC fighters would
do to these, these martial arts guys, if they ever got their hands on them.
And I was like, this is exactly what I need.
A guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind and knows the sport inside and out, but more importantly,
is super passionate about it and loves it.
So when you see Joe Rogan on camera, and I was talking about the paid doc talking heads
that they had in HBO boxing that were terrible.
Joe Rogan does not come off as a paid talking head.
He comes off as a guy who loves this.
And so early on, no media would cover us.
So I had to buy my way onto radio.
So we do these radio tours, right?
And they would drop us in.
You'd have to get up at three 30 in the morning in Vegas on the West coast.
And they, cause that they're at six 30 in the morning in New York and Boston and Florida
and all these other places.
So they drop you into these markets to do radio, right?
And, uh, the fighters were horrible at it.
Fighters getting up at three 30 in the morning, especially leading up to a fight.
Never good.
They sound like they're tired.
They act like they're tired and they definitely act like they don't want to be on there.
And it's, it's bad radio.
What you can't have is bad radio.
So the only two people that could pull off these radio tours were me and Joe Rogan.
So me and Joe Rogan would alternate doing these radio tours all over the country.
Just talking about fighting, talking about what this whole thing is, like getting people
excited.
Two guys that are really into it and passionate about it and love it and, and, and can, and
it's one of the things about Rogan too.
When, when early on nobody understood the ground game, Joe Rogan would walk you through
what was happening literally before it would happen.
And he would tell you the setup, what was going to come next and everything.
And just absolutely articulate it perfectly, brilliantly.
And people at home started to understand.
And the, the impact that Joe Rogan has had and continues to have on this sport is immeasurable.
He's the biggest podcaster in the world.
And he is on the UFC, uh, pay-per-views, you know, 14 times a year.
And he's always talking about the sport.
It's immeasurable, um, what this guy has, has, has done for this company and the sport.
Yeah.
Still to this day, like I'll have dinner with him offline.
He'll just talk fighting.
Yeah.
Just loves it.
It's true.
Loves every aspect of it.
Yep.
Joe Rogan is, is, is one of those guys.
I saw that early on when, why would you go after the fear factor guy, you know, to be
such a key component to not only the company, but to the sport.
I saw it in the fucking interview on Ivory Keenan Wayans.
I value loyalty a lot.
And I remember there was a moment, not too long ago, maybe a year ago, when I was sitting
with Joe and he had a phone call with you.
Joe was getting canceled for something.
And, uh, they didn't want him commentating the fights and you on the phone offered your
resignation over this.
I got teary eyed over that.
That's such a, you're a good man, you know?
Thank you.
That was powerful.
Anybody who is with me, has been with me, knows when you're with me, you're with me.
It's a two way street.
It's not a, it's not a one way street.
Um, I'm not one of these guys that, uh, is going to roll over and, uh, it's like going
through COVID.
Um, I wasn't laying any of these people.
Some of these people have been with me for 20 years.
We're going to, we're going to, we're going to lay them off.
This motherfucker will burn, burn before I would do that to my people.
It's just, it's just never, none of that type of stuff is ever going to happen while
I'm here.
I can't say what's going to happen when I leave, but when I'm here, the people who are
with me and have been with me, they, they know exactly what's up and Joe knows what's
up and, and, and, and, and it's, and again, it's a two way street.
Joe Rogan has been very loyal to me and I am very loyal to Joe Rogan.
Lorenzo, another guy you've close friendship with.
You seem to have been extremely effective together as business partners.
What's, what's the magic behind that?
Yeah.
How can you explain that?
I love him.
Lorenzo and I work really well together because we have two different personalities, right?
I'm the guy that always, I'm, I'm going here.
Lorenzo was always here, right?
You could walk in a room and say, Lorenzo, you just lost $10 million.
Lorenzo, you just won $10 million.
It never changes.
And I'm a guy that goes like this, right?
So we almost balance each other out.
There's a lot of things that he's really fucking good at.
And there's a lot of things that I'm really fucking good at.
And they're both on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
So that level-headed thing was useful when the UFC was losing money and it was unknown
whether it's going to survive those low points.
A hundred percent.
What's incredible when you think of the story of the UFC, at the time, the casino business
was cranking, right?
And station casinos was killing it.
And stations, their money from stations is what was funding the UFC.
Then in the 08-9 crash, the UFC was killing it in 08 and 09.
And, you know, the casino businesses were hurting.
So timing on everything, the way that it all worked out, couldn't have worked out better
for them and obviously for all of us.
When you think about the UFC and how big it is and how far it reaches and how many people
it touches, the Fertitta's brothers made a $2 million investment, then put in like another
$44 million and look at how many lives that investment has changed over the last 25 years.
It's fascinating.
And it's also crazy just, forget the business of it, just the effect it has on the history
of humanity in terms of this is what we do.
We're descendants of apes that fight.
And this is like the organizations that catalyze the innovation in how we fight.
Right.
It's crazy.
It created a whole new sport.
That people all over the world participate in now.
Literally, there isn't a place on earth that we can't get a fighter from now.
So you said in the UFC 299 post-fight press conference that sometimes fighters might complain
that they get matched up on even odds, but that's actually when legends are made.
I think you gave Dustin Poirier as an example.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Like what makes a legend?
What makes greatness in a fight?
So behind the scenes, fighters are a very paranoid bunch of people.
They're very paranoid.
And there's been this theme with fighters where they're trying to get me beat.
Right?
We don't determine who wins and loses.
If we did, we'd be the WWE.
Okay?
You do.
I'm the bells and whistles guy.
I make sure that as many people that we can possibly let know that you're fighting on Saturday
know that you're fighting on Saturday.
Who you are, who you're going against, and why people should give a shit.
That's what I do.
Right?
Then the night you show up, I put on the best live event that I possibly can, and I put on
the best television show that I possibly can.
Once that door shuts, it's all up to you.
You determine whether you lose or not.
And if you get into a position where you become so paranoid that you think that the powers that
be here are against you, and you try to steer yourself away from certain fights,
and that's one of the big things that happens in these other organizations.
In these other organizations, the inmates run the asylum.
Right?
So if they don't want to fight bad enough, these other companies don't push, and they don't do
this, and they don't.
We put on the best possible matchups that we can make.
And in this business, you might be an older fighter.
But if you're still ranked in the top 10, there's young guys coming for you.
Killers.
Young killers are coming out, and they want your position.
Right?
So you, being the veteran that you are, have to prepare yourself to go in.
And everybody was saying, when we made that fight with St. Denis, that Poirier was in big
trouble.
Da-da-da-da-da.
That's awesome.
That helps build the entire thing that Poirier, and then Poirier goes out and does what he
did that night.
That's what makes fucking legends.
It's interesting, because sometimes being the underdog is a really good thing for the
long-term story of who you are as a fighter.
Especially when you're a big name, and a name that people recognize, and a name that people
know.
And, you know, and they're like, oh, man, I remember Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland.
100 out of 100 people knew for a fact that Israel is going to win that fight.
Yeah.
And here comes Strickland.
And we could go on for days with this, you know what I mean?
That is what creates legendary moments, legendary fights, and it's what builds stars and legends.
I mean, arguably, Conor McGregor with Jose Aldo.
Yep.
Conor McGregor with a bunch of people in the beginning.
People said he couldn't wrestle.
People said he wouldn't be able to defend a takedown.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Nate Diaz against Conor McGregor.
You know what I mean?
And Conor McGregor against Khabib.
Underdog, probably.
But if you won, there's an opportunity to win.
If you won, that's the legend for me.
He's now in the conversation for the greatest of all time without argument.
And if you look at the way that Khabib ran through so many people, Conor hung in there,
you know.
Yeah.
It could have been.
Made a fight of it.
It could have been.
What do you think about that matchup?
It's one of the greats, one of the great matchups that you've made, Conor McGregor versus Khabib.
Yeah.
I mean, at the time, I was incredibly criticized for putting together the spot that had the
scene with the bus in it.
Yeah.
You know how the fucking media is.
But they were saying that I was pandering to the violence that happened in China.
I'm telling you a story.
I'm telling you a story of how we got here and how big this fight is and how bad the blood
is between these guys.
And I mean, I think that's what we do the best job at is telling the fucking stories of
why.
I, we go into Monday, it's fight week.
We got a whole list of things that we do fight week, right?
And then you get right down to the press conference on Thursday, the weigh-ins on Friday, and then
the fights on Saturday.
Now, my people fly back home, they go to bed on Sunday night, and it's Groundhog Day.
We wake up again on Monday and it starts all over again.
And every weekend, every Saturday for a year.
So there's lots of stories that need to be told.
There's lots of, when you think about what I compete with, whatever takes your attention
on a Saturday night is my competitor.
So you're always trying to build a foundation for great stories.
And like, if the fighters step up, they step up and they can together create greatness.
That's it.
That's exactly right.
So when we are online, like when you get to the UFC, I mean, you just saw it with MVP.
You're going to see it with Kayla Harrison and so many others that have come from other
organizations and they get here, they notice immediately the difference between fighting
here and fighting wherever they were before.
It's not even comparable to the impact it has on you when you leave whatever organization
you're with and you come to the UFC.
And I think that it gives them a sense of, holy shit, I can really, I mean, MVP when he
came, I mean, there were probably more people at the press conference than any fight he'd
ever fought in in Bellator.
You know what I mean?
And you feel that energy and you feel that you feel the difference of the impact of being
here.
And I think it takes a lot of these guys to another level.
Yeah.
Just the aura of it.
Like this is where you're supposed to step up.
Yeah.
It's the way people feel about TED Talks when they're giving lectures.
Right.
This is your moment.
You get 15 minutes in this.
You better say some interesting shit.
And Kayla Harrison, by the way, is a badass.
I can't wait to see what happens there.
She was walking around with this sleeveless shirt the night of the fights and holy shit.
She's jacked, man.
It's crazy.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Right.
You don't fuck with those people.
You win a medal, you're made of something special.
That's so true.
Especially in judo.
Yeah.
Especially in American judo where you don't have many training partners that are great.
That's what I'm saying.
So you better fucking work for it.
Ridiculous question.
But who is in the conversation for the greatest of all time?
Jon Jones.
So you've talked about Jon Jones.
But what are the metrics involved here?
He's never been beat.
He destroyed everybody at light heavyweight, which at the time was the toughest weight class in the company, in the sport.
And then I moved up to heavyweight, won easily at heavyweight.
And when you look at a guy and you look at what he was doing outside the octagon at the same time, which shouldn't be part of it, shouldn't be part of the equation.
But when you do, wow.
Jon Jones, there's no debate.
Nobody can debate who's the greatest of all time.
It's absolutely positively Jon Jones.
He's never lost.
He's never been beat in the octagon, ever.
So that's one of the metrics.
Like pure sheer dominance.
But there's others, right?
You could, losing sometimes is a catalyst for greatness.
I don't disagree.
But when you've never lost, right?
It's this, you've never lost.
We've never found somebody.
And the other thing is that you have to put it, factor into, is longevity.
How long he's, because sometimes with a lot of these guys, the sport passes them by.
You get younger guys that are faster, this, that, and the sport evolves.
Nobody's been able to beat Jon Jones.
Oh, and the other thing that you measure is, you know, when you said dominance, it's true.
If you're this guy that has unbelievable power and you're just going in, you're just fucking knocking everybody out.
And nobody's ever pulled you into the deep water before.
That was when my opinion of Jon Jones started to change.
Gustafson took him into the deep water.
Gustafson hit him with some shit he'd never been hit with.
Gustafson tested him and put Jon Jones in a place where, I bet if you sat down and interviewed Jon Jones, going into the deep rounds of that, Jon Jones thought he was going to die.
You know what I'm saying?
And he's willing to go there.
And he kept going.
He was willing.
Willing to do whatever it took to win that fight.
And it breaks my heart because he beat DC, and DC is one of the greatest of all time.
That's the thing, too.
And I believe that DC doesn't get the credit he deserves because of the Jon Jones thing.
When you look at DC and what he's accomplished, right?
And Jon Jones beat him twice.
Yeah.
It's undeniable.
You can hate all you want.
Jon Jones is the greatest of all time.
Do you think Habib was tested enough?
I think that Habib had the potential to be in the running for that.
He just didn't stick around a lot.
First of all, he had injuries that, you know, he should have been where he got a lot sooner had he not had the injuries that he had and the setbacks in his career.
But there's no doubt Habib is one of the all-time greats.
What's the good, the bad, and the ugly of your relationship with Conor?
There's literally no ugly.
Conor McGregor has been an incredible partner to work with.
Everybody thinks that Conor, if Conor showed up to things on time, there wouldn't be one fucking bad thing I could say about Conor.
You know what I mean?
Only being late to shit.
If you fucking said, put a gun to my fucking head, right?
And said, don't lie, motherfucker.
Tell me all the bad things about Conor McGregor.
I'd say the guy doesn't show up on time.
That's it.
That's it.
If Conor McGregor showed up to shit on time, and sometimes he does, sometimes he does, he'd be, he's been a great partner.
If you look at what a huge superstar he became, the fights that he was involved in, let me tell you what Conor McGregor never did.
We never walked in a room and said, Conor, this guy just fell out.
We want you to fight this guy.
And he was like, no way.
I'm not taking this fucking risk.
I'm at this point in my career where my money, my this, my that.
He was like, fuck it.
Let's do it.
You know, he'd always say, let's do it.
The other thing that Conor McGregor never did, no matter how big he was or whatever it was, when we were heading into a fight, oh, Conor, this guy just fell out.
Aldo fell out.
We were looking for another.
Yeah, I'll do it, but I'm going to need another fucking 200,000.
I'm going to need another million dollars.
I'm going to, Conor McGregor never did that kind of chicken shit, you know, bullshit kind of stuff.
He never did any of that.
Conor was as solid a guy as you could possibly work with.
Just fuck it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
Literally would, there's actually a scene because we were filming something.
I don't know if it was embedded or what we were filming at the time.
Me and Lorenzo walk into his house that he rented here in Vegas.
And I'm pretty sure it was when Aldo fell out and we're telling him this, that, and we're looking at some options.
He says, I'm going to the gym.
When I'm done working out, let me know.
He just woke up out of bed.
He's in his fucking underwear and he gets hit with this.
And he's like, all right, I'm going to the gym.
Let me know when I get out who I'm fighting.
Doesn't care.
Doesn't want to know.
Doesn't want any more money.
Nothing.
Fucking shows up and he delivers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, Connor has been incredibly successful.
He's made a lot of money and, you know, he's had his ups and downs outside and inside the octagon.
But as for a guy who was, you know, on the dole and was a plumber, he's actually a really smart businessman.
And he's been one of the best partners that I've ever had in the history of the sport.
Yeah.
And an important part of the history of the UFC.
Big.
He opened it up to all kinds of new eyes.
Yep.
He literally, you know, set Europe, Australia, Canada, and many other parts of the world on fire, man.
He was our first legit megastar.
And I personally think he doesn't get enough credit for just how good he was as a fighter.
And people love to talk shit about Connor.
I suppose that's part of his magic.
But it comes with success.
Yeah.
When you're successful, there's always people out there that are going to talk shit.
But, you know, you always have a bunch of know-nothing, do-nothing fucking losers that love to talk shit.
You think if you were to do it all over again, Habib is the right matchup?
Yeah.
Listen, the thing that you can't do is avoid matchups.
You know what I mean?
This is what we're talking about.
When you talk about being a legend, Conor McGregor needed Habib.
Habib needed Conor McGregor.
You can hate each other as much as you want, but you have to fight these other legendary bad motherfuckers to yourself become a legend.
I mean, it's like Jon Jones needed Cyril Gaunt, right?
And Cyril Gaunt needed Jon Jones because if Cyril could have beat Jon, the first guy, if anybody can ever figure it out, and beat Jon Jones, it's a big deal.
And it's almost like your obligation as a fighter, right?
And when you think about Jon Jones became who he is today, and the reason I'm sitting here telling you how great he is, because all these other guys gave him the opportunity to beat them, right?
Or they beat Jon.
It's all about giving these other guys the opportunity.
Saint Denis, right?
Poirier gave him the opportunity to come in and beat him.
So that's how this all works.
It's the two of them together, the two fighters together.
You have to have them both.
Listen, I could line up a bunch of no-name bums that Jon Jones could run through.
That's what they do in all the other organizations, right?
We would have nothing to fucking talk about right now.
That's why, luckily, a perfect record in the UFC is not as important as who you fought, how you fought.
That's true, but when you have a perfect record in the UFC, holy shit, right?
Yeah.
That's what you would, when you can have a perfect record in the UFC, you are absolutely one of the most special athletes on planet Earth.
You and Trump are friends.
I just talked to Ivanka last night, and I bought her experience in the Miami event.
She loves it.
She's training, too.
You're talking about getting girls to train?
She's training, too.
And the kids are training, yeah.
Her father's the biggest fucking fight fan on the planet.
Calls me all the time to talk about the fights.
And Don Jr. said that I'm like the only guy on Earth that he bros out with.
Like, you know, we, it's funny when you talk about how powerful fighting is, right?
This last Miami event, the president of Ecuador and the president of Spain both posted about the fights, right?
Habib beat Conor.
Putin was on FaceTime before he even made it to the locker room.
Trump, sitting president, ex-president, watching all the fights, calling, wants to talk about the fights.
Valentina Shevchenko, every time she goes home, she meets with the president of the country.
The list goes on and on and on.
The most powerful, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg.
I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
The most powerful people in the world are all obsessed with fighting.
When did you first discover that Trump loves fighting?
So I first discovered that Trump was a big fight fan.
Obviously, you saw him part of all the big, you're talking about how big boxing fans we were.
He was a part of all the big fights back then.
But when we first bought the UFC, this thing was so bad, venues didn't even want us.
And we ended up doing, you know, our first event in Atlantic City at the Trump Taj Mahal.
Now, think about this.
At that time, Trump brand here, UFC brand.
I mean, I can't go low enough.
And he had us at his venue two times back to back, showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed till the last fight of the night.
And then after that, any good thing that would ever happen to me in my career, Trump would reach out.
Whether it was, we were on the front page of the New York Times at one time, and he said,
Congratulations, Dana.
I always knew you guys were going to do it.
Little things like that, but that are big things and mean a lot, especially coming from a guy like him.
So he saw something in you, like this is going to be...
100%.
He definitely saw it.
And then comes 15, 16, whenever it was, I don't remember.
But he called me and he said,
Listen, if you don't want to do this, I completely understand.
But I would be honored if you would speak at the National Republican Convention for me.
And I'm not a very political guy, you know what I mean?
And everybody told me not to do it.
Do not do this.
But I was like, why would I not do this?
This guy's been great to me, you know?
And I did it.
And our relationship is just like, you know what I mean?
I consider Donald Trump to be one of my very, very good friends.
Any favorite stories?
I mean, there's so many stories.
I mean, once he won the election, like I'd be at work and I'd be down the hall, was in the matchmaking room, whatever.
And my secretary would tell the president's on the phone, fucking come running down the hallway and grab the phone.
And he'd want to talk about the fight that was coming up or the fight that happened.
Or I'd be in my car and I'd answer the phone.
It's like, hi, this is the White House.
We have the president of the United States on the phone.
You know, that's a trip when that first starts happening.
And then just to sum him up, this is the kind of guy that you want to talk about a fighter?
This is the most resilient human being I've ever met.
If you see the shit that this guy's going through publicly every day, and I'll call him on the phone as a friend and be like, hey, you good?
How you doing?
Unfazed.
Unfazed.
Like, nothing's going on.
And he'll start talking to me about this and that and all this other shit.
One time.
There's only been one time.
I've never talked about this publicly.
But one time I called him and he was not good.
He was a mess.
And I've never heard him like that.
And I've never seen him like that when Ivana died.
The only time I've ever seen him fucked up.
Obviously, as soon as I heard it, I reached out.
And I have never.
Look at all the stuff that's gone on with Trump.
All the bad stuff that they say.
They're trying to attack him.
They're trying to ruin him.
Unfazed.
I called him that day and he was.
It's the first time I've ever seen that guy busted up and not good.
But that says something that that's the only time.
100%.
That guy is, I mean, walking through the fire.
He will walk through fire.
He's an absolute savage.
Which you think he wins the presidential election?
I don't know, man.
It's going to depend on how this whole.
Politics is the most dirtiest, scummiest thing on planet Earth, man.
And who knows how this is all going to play out.
It's all dirty.
It's all ugly.
And, you know, obviously, I'm rooting for him and I'm behind him.
And I hope he does.
But we'll see.
What's dirtier?
The fighting game in the early days or politics?
There's nothing dirtier than politics.
Nothing.
There's literally nothing dirtier.
All right.
It is the dirtiest thing on planet Earth.
I just wanted to get that on record.
Another guy who doesn't seem to be phased by the fire, I've gotten to know him, is Elon.
I have to ask you, it's a bit of fun.
You were a part of thinking about putting together Zuck versus Elon.
Right.
I trained with both.
I did a phone call with Elon and you when we were training on the mat.
Yep.
You really think that could have been a good fight?
It would have been the biggest fight ever done.
The spectacle of it.
Two of the most powerful, wealthiest men in the world, right?
Lots of guys talk shit and go back and forth and sue each other and do all this.
These two guys were literally talking about facing each other in the octagon and fighting.
There's nothing and they're in a business that's looked at as geeky.
You know what I mean?
They're tech nerds.
They're this.
They're that.
These are two dudes that were willing to throw down and fight and you know as well as I do.
There's a lot of public speculation about this.
I was taking serious real time and working on this thing.
I mean, I had projections.
I had numbers.
I was looking at venues.
I was on the phone with the fucking Coliseum in Italy.
You name it.
I was in it.
These guys were serious.
And this was something that was really going to happen.
And I'll tell you right now, in the short amount of time that it was going down, it
was fun.
I was having a blast with it.
What do you think about Tyson?
Tyson fighting Jake Paul.
I love Mike Tyson.
And I'm not a fan of anybody fighting at our age.
But he's a grown man, obviously.
And, you know, he's going to do what he's going to do.
But at least I know.
I talked to his wife a couple days ago.
And he's taking this serious.
And he's training for it.
And, you know, so we'll see how it plays out.
Why do you think he fights, though?
Like, what is that about?
Is there a broader lesson there about fighters?
Well, I think that Mike Tyson is actually one of those unique guys who has crossed over
any of these other boxers from his era.
They have no way of making money other than fighting.
Mike Tyson has made a lot of money outside of fighting.
I mean, Tyson still has that aura.
You could be at a restaurant and he walks in and you're like, holy fuck, Mike Tyson's here.
You know, he still has that type of aura and energy in a room.
And he makes lots of money outside of the ring.
I just, I think that he ends up getting these offers that he can't refuse.
Oh, you think it's financial?
So how much, I mean, that's a good question to ask.
You work with a lot of fighters.
For how many of them is it about money?
And for how many is it about the fact, the pure love of fighting?
Well, the guys that get into it for the right reason are the guys who get into it for greatness
because you want to be the fucking best, right?
And when you're in it for that reason, right?
You love it and you want to be looked at as the best ever and you have the talent, the money
happens, right?
Then you have other guys who get in.
I believe me, I've dealt with fighters who just wanted to be famous and just wanted to
make money.
You know what I mean?
And it's, you know, listen, it is what it is.
It's your, it's your life and you live it the way that you want and do your thing.
But the ones that are beloved are the guys who really want to be fucking great.
And they're the ones that are remembered.
And I mean, when you look at Tyson in his early years, when he came up under Costa Amato,
I mean, he was a student of the game.
He, he, he loved everything.
He became completely infatuated with the fight game.
Then he became such a massive superstar.
It's almost like the whole thing starts to turn on you, you know, all the things that
come at you at a young age and that kind of money.
And it's, it's tough.
It's tough to navigate and get through.
And, you know, you, you say something like that and people like, Oh, poor him.
He had fucking a hundred million dollars and couldn't at that age.
And with all the shit that people talk and all the things that you got to put up with
and the fame, a lot of people deal with fame.
Some people handle it really well and some people don't.
And the perfect example, um, uh, of that was Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner.
You know, they fought that, that unbelievable fight on the ultimate fighter.
Everything blew up after that.
Forrest dealt with fame really well.
And, and, and Stefan did not.
That was a special fight.
It really was.
What do you think attracted people to that fight?
So that, that made, that was a big, uh, leap for the UFC.
It was everything.
It was everything.
It was everything.
Why do you think people love that fight?
What, what attracted people to that fight?
Why did they change everything?
Well, what happened that night is that the rest of the show was a disaster.
Um, you know, we had the co-main event and the main event, uh, Diego Sanchez ran through
Kenny Florian in seconds.
Um, oh my God, that was, that was terrible.
And the fights that led up to that weren't anything to talk about either.
Then Stefan and Forrest got in there and just went toe to toe in this unbelievable slugfest
live on free television when cable still mattered.
And what I heard was at the time, you know, you had people picking up the phone going, are
you watching this show?
I'm like, the numbers just started climbing.
Then you got a razor thin decision.
Who's going to win?
You got the crowd stomping their feet.
It sounded like a train was going through the place and everybody's chanting one more
round.
Me and the Fertitta brothers get together and we talk, we're going to give them both contracts.
So we give them both contracts and the place erupts.
It just, it couldn't have been a more perfect fight at the most perfect time.
And it just, it, it, it all came together.
It's almost like this was meant to be, you know what I mean?
So we had so many problems with Spike TV at the time, right?
Because halfway through the season, the president of the company got fired.
All the things that we thought we were going to get that year, you know, we, we, we have
this runaway hit show.
And normally at that time, when you would see runaway hit shows, there'd be commercials.
It'd be on, be on billboards.
It'd be on the side of buses in LA and New York.
We got none of that, right?
We didn't even know if we were going to get a, you know, a second season coming out of
that.
Right.
And when that fight was over, I swear to God, I was like, I don't even give a fuck.
We're going to end up somewhere now after this fight.
And we didn't even make it out of the building that night.
The Spike guys did the contract with us in the alley on a fucking napkin after the fight.
So you saw the, you already saw the magic of the fight itself.
Once that happened and all the shit.
And at that time, I didn't know what the rating is.
It's not like we were streaming and we could see what we were, we had no idea, but I knew.
You just knew this.
I knew.
What is it?
It's like just two people being willing to stand toe to toe and just go to war.
And when you think about what was at stake, there was a car, remember the Kia, the winner
got a Kia, right?
That's what was the fucking, right?
And Stefan and Forrest, the will to win.
They both wanted to win that fight so bad.
It was bigger than the Kia probably.
You know, Forrest drove that Kia to like 200,000 miles.
The biggest mistake Kia ever made was not doing a fucking commercial with Forrest Griffin
about that car.
Forrest Griffin loved that car so much.
He drove it.
I think he still has it.
It's got like 200,000 miles on it.
Yeah.
I mean, you couldn't have a better fucking commercial than that.
They, they, and we reached out to him too.
I said, Kia should know about this.
Yeah.
They fucking blew it.
You got a bunch of, you know how those guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Are in the, the, the business world.
They don't fucking get anything.
Maybe it was about the Kia then.
It was about winning.
They, they both wanted to win the ultimate fighter so bad.
Yeah.
It's the Kia.
It's, it's the win.
It's the, it's the, um,
the contract you get, the whole thing.
But I think at that point, you even forget all of that when you're in there, you probably
just, there's a primal thing where like, I'm not backing down.
They're both bad dudes.
They were both real fighters at the end of the day.
That's why the fight was so great.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And just throw it all, all the caution to the wind and just fight.
Yep.
Those are some of the greatest moments in the FC too.
When the technique is not kind of falls apart and you're just like, well, fuck it.
Because you're in those deep rounds.
You've had, you've been through a war.
Now it's all about heart and dog who can dig deeper and who's got it and who wants it.
Who wants it?
I mean, we all know when that, when that moment happens in a fight, when you see that both
of these guys are fucking exhausted.
And for people that are watching this, people that don't know a lot of, everybody thinks
they know a lot about fighting.
99.9% of the people out there don't know fucking jack shit about fighting or what it
takes to do what these people do.
But when you get into those later rounds and fatigue sets in and, and then fatigue makes
you start to fucking doubt yourself.
And, and, and then you start to wonder, can I even make it through the rest of this round?
And then you start to think, am I going to fucking die right now?
And these kids dig fucking deep.
And they just, like you said, all the other shit flies out the window and now they're just
on fucking autopilot to fight and win.
Those are definitely the best fights you'll ever see in any combat sport.
I mean, that saying is true.
Like the exhaustion makes cowards of us all.
I mean, there, there's something about, cause I've competed a lot in jujitsu.
So there's the violence of being hit too, but even just exhaustion, it makes you question
everything.
So true.
It just takes you to some weird place where your brain starts to think you're going to
die for sure.
Your brain starts to think like, why am I doing this?
All these excuses, all this, and then the truly heroic action is to say, fuck it in
that moment and just to get in there.
When you think about these fights that you see in the UFC every fucking Saturday, when
these, these men and women get to this point where they're, they've been in a dog fight
yet.
They keep fucking going and you keep trying to win.
You can't imagine what's going on inside their heads, you know, self-doubt and all these
other things that come into play when exhaustion sets in and they fucking power through it.
Yeah.
Those moments, sometimes they're not, they don't have a glorious knockout at the end, but your
decision in the third round or the fifth round to still keep pushing forward, not running
a hundred percent, that's a, that doesn't matter what happened.
That like, that is a person winning a battle over themselves.
So true.
It's so true.
And it happens every fucking weekend.
It's so impressive.
I say it all the time.
The, the, the, the people that are involved in this sport are this much of the population.
The people that make it to the top five are incredibly unique, special human beings, man.
It's, it's fucking awesome.
You love gambling.
I do.
What's the biggest win of your gambling career?
Maybe psychologically, if not financially.
Well, two things.
I, I, I won a million dollar hand, uh, one night, it's happened one time, a million dollar
hand one night at, um, Mandalay Bay.
And then, uh, one summer I beat, uh, I beat Caesars for 12 million, uh, throughout the summer.
Throughout the summer.
Yeah.
And then, uh, I'm on a pretty good run right now too.
No, this is blackjack.
Yeah.
What's, uh, the biggest loss?
Biggest loss was, uh, I w here, here was, I would call this the biggest loss for many
different reasons.
This, this is what, you know, you live and you learn in life and you, you know, you, you
figure things out as you go along.
So one night I'm over at the, uh, at the Rio, right.
And, uh, they got big suites over there.
So I go over there with some buddies and we got one of the suites and we have some dinner
and we start drinking, right?
So we're having some drinks at dinner and blah, blah, blah, starts to ramp up, having
a good time.
Um, and, um, I make my way down to the high limit room.
We start gambling and I continue to drink, having a blast.
I end up leaving and going home that night and I lost like 80 grand, right?
So I wake up the next morning.
I'm like, fuck those motherfuckers got me for 80,000 last night.
And so I'm at work the next day and, uh, the host over there calls me and he says,
Hey, Dana, um, are you coming back?
Do you still need the room that you guys had where you ate and all the shit used to?
And I said, no, you, I don't need the room, but don't get, don't get too comfortable with
my fucking 80 grand.
I'm coming back for it.
Yeah.
Dead fucking silence on the other end of the phone.
And he's like, Dana, you lost $3 million last night.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I, I, I, I, I only have a, uh, a million and a half dollar credit line.
He goes, yeah, you, uh, you made us call the GM of the hotel and you started calling
him a fucking pussy and, and dah, dah, dah, dah.
And I'm, and I went, yeah, no, that, that, that sounds like something I would do.
Yeah.
So that's the real number.
That was the real number.
And then, and then, you know, there's been a lot of cases where people are in Vegas and
they're like, um, Oh, you know, I lost all this money, you know, and they were giving
me free drinks and I drank too much and I was taking advantage of no, no, you stupid
motherfucker man up.
You got fucking drunk, right?
They, they didn't, the alcohol is free, but you don't have to fucking drink it.
You know what I mean?
And you know, this, this was a huge learning lesson for me.
So I never drank again when I, when I was playing cards after that night, but yeah, I
mean, when you ask me, that's the one that stands out in my head the most as far as, uh,
having a bad loss.
And then, you know, of course I said, call the GM and I started calling him a pussy at
three o'clock in the morning.
So that is something I would absolutely do.
How do you deal with those psychologically?
Do you, uh, when you gamble, maybe this applies to fighting too.
Do you love winning or hate losing more?
They go hand in hand.
And so the way that I, that I play is I live in Vegas.
So 2024 is a war for me.
I go to war in 24.
Okay.
All these nights that I play are little battles inside the war that I will fight in 24.
Now at the end of the year, we will tally, you know, tally up all these little battles
and see where I stand on when wins and losses and, um,
you know, there's, there, there's lots of talk about out there about my gambling, you
know, places that I've been, um, kicked out of and things like that.
And I, I, I, I do pretty well, I do pretty well, but it's, it's, it's what I like to do.
You know, I, I, I don't gamble in a way that I would ever hurt myself or, or hurt my family
or, uh, you know, I'm sure you've heard the Norm Macdonald stories.
Norm Macdonald lost like his entire personal wealth four times or something like that.
Um, yeah, that's, that's not going to happen to me.
So you, you, you manage it, but just psychologically you're able to be even.
So, so when I win, it's awesome.
It's always great to win.
Winning is, is, is a great feeling in business and sports and life and definitely in gambling.
Um, losing is, is, is never fun, but it's part of the game.
You know what I mean?
If, if you want to be in the game and it's sports, it's business or whatever, there's going
to be wins and there's going to be losses and you have to take them both in stride and
you have to be able to, you know, um, there's a lot of people when you gamble, right.
And you lose and you go into a deep, dark depression.
I've seen this with guys that do it, get depressed.
Gambling isn't for you.
You know, if you are the type of person that's on social media and people say horrible things
to you and you get depressed and you shouldn't be on social media.
You know what I mean?
These are all part of being in the game.
When you're in the fucking game, great things happen and really bad things happen.
And you got to take it all in stride and you got to pick yourself up the next day, strap
your fucking shoes back on and get out there and go to fucking war again.
That's how it works.
That's some gogging shit right there.
All right.
I love that motivational speech.
Uh, it's the truth though.
Yeah, it is.
It's the truth though.
Listen, every day when you get out of bed, life's standing right there to kick you in
the fucking face, man.
Could be anything.
Could be you get up and you walk downstairs, you had a fucking flat tire and you're late for
work and you got this and that.
Life is going to throw all kinds of crazy shit at you, right?
And you have to be ready for it and you got to fucking deal with it.
You can't curl up into a ball.
You can't run away from it.
You can't hide.
You have to take all this shit head on.
You have to get up every day.
When I get up out of bed, I strap up and I'm getting ready for fucking war because I know
I'm coming in here.
I know a bunch of bad shit's going to happen that I'm going to fucking deal with.
And if that's not bad enough, when I finally get out of here, I'm probably going to go
to the casino and I'm going to get into another fucking war.
You know what I mean?
I thrive in chaos.
I actually love chaos.
Everybody talks about retiring.
Fuck that shit.
What am I going to do when I retire?
What would I do?
What would I?
I like to go to war.
I like to battle.
I like to win.
Sometimes I lose, but then I have to come back from the loss.
And I love to build brands.
I love to set short-term and long-term goals and then knock them all down.
You know, this is just the stuff that excites me.
And whether it's business or gambling or I like being a fan of things too.
Like I like live music.
So when I find a band that I like, I get excited to go watch the band live.
Or Celtics game.
I love the fucking Boston Celtics and I love, you know, going to the games and watching them.
This is the year.
Hopefully we're going to fucking win it this year.
These are all things that make me happy and excite me in my life.
And it's funny because there's this post that I post maybe three, four nights a week.
I also love the city.
I can't tell if the city of Las Vegas was built for me or I was built for this fucking city,
but I love it.
And there's this turn on Summerlin Parkway, right?
Every night and it's dark.
And from there you can see the entire fucking city and it's all fucking lights and it's
badass.
And I'm usually driving home after a fucking incredible day, right?
This amazing day and this unbelievable fucking life that I have.
And I have this just moment of gratitude every time I take that turn and I'm like, God damn,
I love this fucking city.
And just every night when I go home, I'm just so happy and grateful for this life that I
have.
So you're grateful.
You're celebrating.
Even if the day is full of shit, full of problems, you have to solve all of this.
You're still able to put that behind you.
I love that too.
I love problem solving.
I love, um, I love taking things that seem impossible and fucking what's been shit on
more than this fucking company right here.
Yeah.
Power slap, right?
Yeah.
This thing's a fucking beast.
It's an absolute beast of in 13 months.
That's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of.
And I love every fucking minute of it, especially the negativity.
I love negativity.
Oh, so you almost feed on it.
That's great.
That's great.
You're a build for it.
I eat that shit for fucking breakfast, man.
I love it.
What's your favorite movie about Vegas?
Casino?
Yeah.
It would have to be Casino.
No doubt about it.
Yeah.
You ever see a movie that changed your life, that actually impacted your life in some way,
shape or form?
Probably.
Which one?
That's a good question.
I have to think.
Um, I, well, I have a lot, a lot, cause you know, it could be one of them probably taught
me about women.
Uh, you know, Forrest Gump for me, it's a simple movie, but it was, it was a really good movie
to show.
It reminded me, cause I've been really fortunate in my life, like over and over and over.
And I don't think I deserve any of it.
So I just always felt like Forrest Gump.
So when I finally saw it, uh, it really connected with me.
It was like, okay, this, this universe works in weird ways and stuff just materializes and
you just kind of be good to people, like put that good karma out there and it happens for
you.
So that, that was a movie like that.
I'm actually very superstitious about that.
I believe that, that, that, that what you, what you put out, you get back.
Um, and I believe that when you have, you should take care of other people and you should always
try to bring people up with you and all that kind of stuff.
But the movie that changed the whole trajectory of my life was vision quest.
Oh yeah.
Well, yeah, that, that's a good one too.
Yeah.
Vision quest, man.
I fucking love that movie.
It's basically, you know, it's telling the story of a kid who really wasn't anybody in
high school and nobody kind of knew who he was.
He wasn't popular or any of that kind of shit.
And he decided that that was the year that he was going to make his mark.
And he was a good wrestler at 178 pounds, but he was going to move down to 160 something
to take on the shoot, the scariest guy and the whatever.
But there's all these little things in the movie that, that really lay out what life is
all about.
One of the parts is he's in a class and he's talking about the teacher is talking about
some poem and he says, what does this poem mean to you?
Well, this little girl's walking through, um, you know, the park and all the leaves are
falling off the trees and she realizes that she's going to die someday.
And that a lot of people think they have all this time, so they fucking waste it and they
never go out and do what they really set out to do or accomplish or do anything great in
their life.
That's one meaning.
Then he's got the guy that he works with at work, you know, he's cutting weight and his
nose is bleeding and all this shit.
And this guy keeps going, why the fuck are you doing this?
Pick that thing up and eat it like a fucking man.
This is ridiculous.
I don't know why you're doing this to yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So then when he meets the girl and he gets to the point where he feels like he wants
to quit, right?
Where does he go?
He goes to that guy's fucking apartment because he knows when he shows up at this guy's apartment,
he's going to go, yeah, fuck this shit.
No, he went to work.
He went to work to talk to him and he wasn't at work.
He took the night off.
So he shows up at the fucking house at the shitty little fucking apartment that the guy
lives in.
And the guy's putting a suit and tie on and shit.
He's like, they said, you called in sick.
What's going on?
He's like, well, yeah.
Aren't you wrestling this guy tonight?
And he's like, yeah, but, but why would you, you're going to get docked a night's pay and
all this other stuff.
She says, you know what, man?
Then it all gets laid out.
I get the goosebumps even telling you this fucking part of it.
Is that the Pelé speech?
Pelé.
Yeah.
When he's saying about, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm fucking cooking in an overnight
hotel fucking thing.
And I live in this shitty apartment.
A human being can lift himself upside down and backwards and kick a ball into a fucking net.
And the whole stadium goes crazy.
And this guy runs around and I'm sitting here in my fucking apartment alone and I start
crying.
Yeah.
I start crying.
So the guy who's been shitting on him the whole fucking time actually really respects
him for what he's done and sees what this kid is capable of doing.
And all this shit, there's just, this fucking movie spoke to me on so many different levels.
And I think it's probably the most underrated movie of all time.
When you really break down the meaning of what this movie is about and, and, and, and it fucking
really spoke to me.
That's probably the greatest movie on combat, one-on-one combat.
I would agree.
Ever made.
I would agree.
Yeah.
And especially if you can really hear the messages that it's, that it's, that it's given
you in this movie, it's, it's, it's excellent.
You know, it's funny.
They just did like the, and I saw this after the fact, which completely fucking pissed me
off.
They did like the 25 year or the 30 year thing.
It was filmed in Spokane, Washington.
They showed the movie at a movie theater there and the cast members came out and spoke about
it.
I would have fucking flown there for that.
Are you shitting me?
I'd have been there in fucking 30 seconds to go up there and, and, and be a part of that.
That, that movie literally changed my life.
So yeah, I suppose me too.
I mean, it made me, it made me want to wrestle.
I mean, probably the reason I was, maybe it made me love, fall in love with wrestling.
Well, you know what's funny?
I wasn't even into wrestling at all and I didn't have to be for that movie to.
Yeah.
It's the basic human story.
It's, it's such a great movie.
I mean, that's what fighting does.
It brings out the basic, like the, the, the humanity of a person really like if the,
for the people that choose to step up and step in the ring and, and, and then chase
greatness and actually do it from like against the long odds.
That's why it's a beautiful game.
And it's so true.
I mean, when you think about like, I'm 54 years old right now, like that, I mean, it
just fucking flew by.
Yeah.
And, uh, you think when you're young that you have all this time, you have no time.
There's dirt, there's no time.
I mean, one of the, one of the quotes on the wall and the gym in there is, um, you know,
there is no tomorrow from, from, from Rocky three, you know, there is no tomorrow.
Fuck that shit.
Let's, let's, let's get all this shit done today.
Do you think about your death?
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not afraid of death.
Not even a little bit.
I'm not afraid of it.
Um, I don't know if that'll be the case when I'm facing it, you know, when I'm looking down
the barrel of it, laying in a hospital bed somewhere.
But for now, just squeezing as much as you can out of it.
100%.
I literally, I don't even like to sleep.
My life is so fucking awesome.
I don't even want to go to bed at night.
I don't even want to go to sleep.
I want to stay up fucking.
I wish I could fucking do 24 hours and never have to sleep.
That's how much I love my life.
What has, uh, watching thousands of fights over the years taught you about human nature,
about us humans?
I don't care what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak.
We're all human beings.
Fighting's in our DNA.
We get it and we like it.
And it's true.
Fighting is in our DNA.
It's a part of who we are.
And, uh, you know, no matter where you are, fight breaks out.
It creates this fucking energy, this buzz, this sense of fear.
I mean, a lot of different emotions happen in people when fights break out.
But one thing that, that, that is always the case, everybody's watching, man.
Everybody's fucking it.
All of their eyes are on the fight.
I mean, we were just in Mexico.
Fucking fight broke out.
Like in the good seats, like right here with these seats that are super expensive.
And security never fucking came.
They just let these guys fight until they gassed out.
And then everybody put their chairs back together and sat back down and fucking,
I literally got up from my table, walked over and was watching this fight at the fights.
At the fights.
Yeah.
I mean, humans fight and humans love watching fighting.
Absolutely.
And that was my thought process going into buying the UFC.
And I believe that this would work everywhere.
And thank God we were right.
Well, Dana, thank you for bringing this very human thing of fighting.
The art of it, the science of it, the heroic stories, the vision quest stories of it all.
Boom.
I really appreciate you talking to you, brother.
Thank you.
Pleasure, buddy.
Thank you for the kind words.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Dana White.
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And now, let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali.
Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they've been given
than to explore the power they have to change it.
Impossible is not a fact.
It's an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration.
It's a dare.
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.