Bruce Buffer

Okay, that's, Fertitta Brothers are powerful.

Dana's passionate and, you know, obviously knows everything to do.

And we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Dana and his amazing maverick style and everything he's done over the years with his team.

I said, what's the good news?

He goes, well, they're going to let everybody go, except for you and John McCarthy.

okay so then i went to a boxing match in vegas um and i was invited with john to go out to dinner with dana and you know the partitas and we all met and what year is this uh what there's like 99. i could be off here guys but 99. i think it was when they took it over i'm pretty sure

i love wine and all and you know the vertidas have such style they put opus one on the table and i go i really like this this is going to be good and their passion that they exuded and everything they wanted to do with it i could tell this was the saving grace this was going to put us over the top yeah then they went through their process and as you may or may not know you know

they bought the ufc i think for two million dollars you know they eventually sold it for 4.2 billion or whatever that thing was they went into it and then dana told the story you know you got a call from lorenzo look we're like whatever 40 million 50 million in the hole it's time to sell it whatever and then they decided not to and they rolled the dice on the ultimate fighter tv series

And that was on Spike TV.

And then the end of that first season was the Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner fight, which was phenomenal.

And I think the share, if you understand, you know, Nielsen rating share went up to like a 12 to 15 during that fight.

Everybody was tuning into that fight.

and like i always say and i think i'm correct i mean spike tv made us so we made spike tv and it was like the beginning of it all and then again thanks to dana and the powers that be and the marketing team and everything here we are today you know that's and thanks to the incredible fighters men and women both and the fans the usc fans are just incredible insane right insane so you saw it that's that's crazy you saw the vision all the way back then i knew in the very beginning and i'm

Anybody can doubt this or whatever, but I knew this was going to be one of the biggest things in sports.

Maybe not the biggest, although in some respect it's pretty darn big, but I knew this was going to be one of the biggest thing in sports.

And there were little things I did like, you know, helping get on like the Jay Leno show or, you know, Jimmy Kimmel and, you know, use my media contacts.

whatever i could you know they had people doing it but like i even called espn one time talking about the ultimate fighting you know what they said they were afraid of the name you know that was the word i got back from one of the people you know that i was dealing with back then just saying not that i was trying to make money and make a deal for them that's up to them to make the deal i just was introducing and say guys this thing is huge and i'll never forget the call i had with espn well the name's a little you know

And then what happened?

ESPN bought the TV rights eventually.

I am the octagon announcer.