Dana White
Appearances
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
That's when it becomes obsessive. You know what I mean? I feel like I'm obsessive right now. He's a whole other level. When you're living to try to live longer.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
obtain a like that's not realistic for my day-to-day me neither but everyone's different but it's fascinating what he does and it's just it's what we have the opportunities to do it's so true the the knowledge that we have now that they didn't have 25 years ago right it's fascinating yeah i love it and i'm not i'm not really trying to live you know i'm not trying to live to be a hundred or any of that kind of shit i just want to have a good quality of life while i'm alive
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Well, no, what I found out is that he could tell you.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
How long you live. Then I became obsessed with that. I just wanted to know how long I was going to live.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah. Yeah. But, but definitely on point. I mean, I was, I was, I was a fucking mess. Really? Yeah. I was a mess. I was a mess. And now me and my wife, when we think about the 10.4 years, we're like, it was probably earlier than that. I mean, I had real bad sleep apnea. Right. Like I'd wake up choking in the middle of the night and shit like that. And my legs, I could barely put my shoes on.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. I was a mess. And you go see doctors and the answer to all the problems is different pills or more pills or, you know, now I'm on no pills.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Well, I'm addicted to cold plunging. I mean, every morning when I get up, I cold plunge sauna.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
A lot of people. It's funny how tough it is for a lot of people. In the beginning, when you first start, but then it becomes an absolute addiction, like You gotta know somebody that can't start their day without coffee, right? I can't start my day without cold plunge. And if I do, I feel like shit. And as soon as I land anywhere, I go right to a cold plunge. I'm flying from here to Austin.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
It's legit. I'm going to point out, no matter where I go, it could be 35 degrees. It could be 50 degrees. It doesn't bother me at all. I can do any temperature.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Oh, man. I mean, there's been some I've been doing this for I've been in the business for 30 years. I've been doing this for like 25 years. But there's there's so many crazy stories. I mean, this business, the behind the scenes is is where all the crazy shit happens and negotiations and interactions with these guys fight night backstage, you know, when when crazy shit happens and
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I don't know if there's any one crazy thing that stands out in my mind other than like the Connor situation in New York when he attacked the bus that Habib and those guys were on. Probably the craziest thing that's ever happened. And a couple of Diaz brothers incidents, which we've, which are all public. I mean, they fought and then they got to the hospital.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
They went to the same hospital and they ended up fighting in the hospital. Which is probably the craziest story in the history of the sport, let alone, you know, the UFC.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
When the company was younger, yes. When we were building the company, you know, I had these relationships with the guys and girls, too. I mean, me and Ronda Rousey, yeah, it was different then than it is now that it's so much bigger. But the answer was yes. It was very much like that in the early days.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
My sons or my daughter. If that's what they wanted to do, I always tell, you know, I'm not one of these guys like, oh, I want my kids to be a doctor or a lawyer or any of this shit. I just want my kids to be happy. Right. And you know better than anybody, whatever gets you up in the morning, whatever makes you happy, it could be pumping gas. I could give a shit.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Whatever makes you happy is what I want you to do. And if it was fighting, I would absolutely support it.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
it's a great question it's just something inside us as human beings we get fighting and we like it and we are fascinated by who the toughest person in the world is we are all drawn to it and i mean if you think of tyson and his peak when that guy would walk into a room the whole place would go holy shit there's mike tyson no other sport has that you know you'd be excited oh there's
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Michael Jordan or whoever. But when one of those guys walk in the room and they're looked at as the baddest human being on the planet, men, women, everybody is just drawn to it.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
What was fascinating about other sports is even those other athletes look up to the Tyson-like guys. You're right.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Sport? No, no, no. I like all types of fighting. I mean, I'm doing fucking slapping now. I like it all. If somebody's hitting somebody else, I'm in.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
It's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of in such a short amount of time.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
It's crazy. That's crazy. It's crazy. And, you know, it's incredibly viral. So, I mean, the numbers that this thing pulls on social media is insane.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
No, 100% because of the reality show. Oh, wow. At the time, we couldn't get on television. The UFC now, I try to tell this story. It's hard to explain. But this thing was so, I mean, it was illegal in some places. That's how bad it was. Think about this. As a grown adult, you didn't have the right to buy it on pay-per-view. Porn was on pay-per-view.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
After The Ultimate Fighter. Once we got The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV and it blew up and did massive numbers, then we got back on pay-per-view and that's how the business really got rolling.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I literally just filmed it yesterday. Yesterday was the last shooting day for the 20th. It's the 20th anniversary.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
not a pay cut, I was gonna give up my salary and bonus. If I was wrong and we couldn't go through, because I was gonna go through COVID no matter what. And actually COVID is the perfect example of loyalty. And you don't find out who's who and what's what until the shit hits the fan, right? We all love each other and we're here until you hit hard times in any relationship.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
To stay on for 20 years. To stay on for 20 years.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
And you have YouTube now and social media and all these disruptors. And, you know, linear television is dying.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah, we hoped it would. We always felt like if we could get this on free television, then the rest of the world would see it for what we saw in it. And we thought it would be very popular. And I always believed that this would work everywhere all around the world. So when you talk about, I used to have this, when I grew up, there was Channel 3, Channel 5, Channel 8, and Channel 13.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Then in high school, cable came, it was like 33 channels, then satellite. But I always believed that there would be a day where everybody around the world would be able to watch the same channel. At the same time, you know, and now that's happening. So I believe that in the next, you know, six, seven, 10 years, there will be a channel three, channel five, channel eight and channel 13 globally.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Who's it going to be? It's going to be Amazon, YouTube, Disney. You know, we'll see how that plays out. But when you think about what I've told you about fighting, what's the ceiling on this business? Right. Eight billion people. There's eight billion people in the world.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Right. Everything in life is about timing. We knew we had the right product, the right people that were involved, but was the timing right for it?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Um, well, I, I, I literally don't get involved in anything that I don't believe. Yeah. And, and you know what I mean? I don't get paid to do shit anymore except work UFC shift. You know, you couldn't pay me to promote this, this book or, or, or whatever. I wouldn't do it. I'd only get involved in things that I truly believe in and that I'm really passionate about.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
that when they talk about canceling people, like getting canceled, it's always fascinating to me because who cancels you? Like you live in a cul-de-sac with your entire family, right? That's all you give a shit about. Who's gonna cancel you? Some other assholes that you could give a shit about that don't like you are going to say whatever. I mean, you have a core of people that are in your life.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Those are the only people that can cancel you. Right?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Who gives a shit what everybody else thinks or what their opinions are?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
and anybody else that doesn't like something you did or said or how you lived your life or whatever your deal is. Yeah, you can only be canceled if you allow people that you don't give a shit about to cancel you. You have a core or a group of people that you care about that you interact with every day that are your people, right? I mean, if they cancel you, that's a whole nother story.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
You don't find out until you hit hard times and sponsors too. I don't even want to be with a sponsor that I'm not aligned with and that, you know, in as many ways as possible. Cause I had some sponsors going through COVID that were nightmares. Um, and paying us big money, but absolute nightmares. I wouldn't sign a deal with them again if they tripled the number, seriously.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah, there's a couple. You know, there's a couple that stand out in my mind. It's funny, this full circle moment happened to me. Have you ever heard of the movie Vision Quest?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
So it was a movie in the 80s with Matthew Modine. It's a wrestling movie. It's like a wrestling Rocky movie.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
But it has all these really incredible elements in the movie that completely spoke to me when I was 15 years old. And they just invited me. It's the 40th anniversary. Oh, no way. And it was in Spokane, Washington, where it was filmed. And I flew there on Sunday. And they had the films, like 1,000 people there.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
and my I made my sons watch the movie like 400 times when they were growing up but my daughter had never seen it so we flew there we went to the 40th anniversary thing and and Matthew Modine was there and the guy who taught him how to wrestle for the movie um but that movie was a it was a very um pivotal moment in in my life um and right around that same time
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
We lived in Vegas and there was this asshole who lived behind us. You know, single mom with two little kids. And he used to fucking torture us, man. Always fucking with us and doing stuff. And then one day I was sitting at the kitchen table and I heard somebody yelling. And I realized it was him yelling at my mom. She was out back cleaning the pool.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
And I realized it was him yelling over the wall at my mother. And then that day I just snapped.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
And I ran out back and I jumped up on the wall and I said, if you ever stick your head over this wall again and dah, dah, dah, dah, I'm going to beat the shit out of you. And the guy literally, we never heard from him ever again.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
You know, a 15 year old kid, all the years that he was messing with a single mom and her two little kids, that was the day that like, you know, I don't want to say that's the day I became a man or any crazy shit like that, but Everything changed after that day. It was weird. But that one moment stands out in my mind, in my life, when I was growing up.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Because I remember thinking, this guy would do so much crazy shit when we were growing up and we were little. I was just always like, if my dad was here, my dad would beat the shit out of this guy. But yeah.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
But yeah, so after we did the Ultimate Fighter, the UFC was this rocket ship of success and we're all working hard and doing our thing. And we throw these unbelievable Christmas parties every year for the team. Yeah, it's an HR nightmare. Like, I encourage everybody to get drunk and have a blast. And, you know, they're fun. We've had, like...
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I met my wife in eighth grade. I went to a school called St. Viters in Vegas my eighth grade year. And that's where we met.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
No, no, I definitely didn't know that. But, you know, we were friends all through high school. We never dated. We were really good friends. And then I moved back to Boston after we graduated and lived there for almost 10 years and then when I came back to Vegas she picked me up at the airport and we've been together ever since I love that that was 1995 I love that wow yeah so what 30 years
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I'm actually really laid back. You are? With a lot of stuff, yeah. Not so much with my daughter, but with my sons, I'm very laid back.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
They get to do things that she doesn't get to do.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I could not agree with you more. Thank you. And you know what? I'm lucky because my daughter doesn't disagree. She's been real easy. She's been awesome. Yeah. I really lucked out with her. So yeah, it's been good. Her and I have a really good relationship.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
you know what i i was a crazy kid too but i i never tell my sons any of those stories or any of that stuff that's my problem yeah don't tell them don't don't tell them don't give them any ideas 100 when i grew up i got had a real job i worked i started as a teenager like working at the ice cream shop and then it was a clothing store and
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
i had real jobs before this world and i know you worked at as a hotel bellman yep and construction and i did all the shitty you got to have all those shitty jobs and that's the hard part about when you when you when you make money like my younger son aiden he didn't want to go to college so i said okay but you're going to work so he actually had to go out and start putting in applications he was living out here in california and uh
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I had him going to like In-N-Out Burger. Long story short, he ended up getting a job at U-Haul. And he fucking hated that job. Hated that job. But those are the, you have to have that experience. You have to know. It's like dating. You gotta know what a bad experience is to find out what a good experience is, right?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
So when you have these shitty jobs, what they really teach you is what you don't wanna do. This is what you don't wanna do. But it's hard. It is hard.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
How's a Kardashian going to go out and start putting in applications at fucking U-Haul?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
When we were growing up, like we were my mom's slaves. We used to have to do the, you know, we did our own laundry. We cleaned the house. I used to have to, I swear to God, I'd be mowing the lawn. And I'm like, when I grow up, I'm going to make enough money so I never have to mow another fucking lawn again in my life. And I hated mowing the lawn. I had to fucking trim the bushes and everything.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
the red hot chili peppers play at our Christmas parties. Snoop, you name them. We've had everybody play and it's a blast. And I get up there every year and tell my team how much I love them and how much they mean to me and all this stuff. So then here comes COVID and probably the scariest time in our lifetime. And you're looking at laying off 38% of the staff.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
all that shit I was a landscaper and uh I swear to god I said I'm never doing this when I get older um this is never going to happen but these are the kind of experiences you have to have when you're younger and it's and it's it's uh it's definitely what freaked me out too and raising kids I was like my kids can never grow up the way I grew up I grew up under
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
You left the house and went out and played all day and didn't come back till the streetlights came on. That shit just doesn't exist anymore.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Riding our bikes down the main streets and like, it's incredible that so many kids from the 80s are still alive. I know. It's insane.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I bet she does. You guys are fucking animals, man. I respect how hard you guys work. And people don't get it. You'll always have people.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
talking shit bunch of do nothing know nothing people that talk shit having cameras in your faces growing up the way you did all the time it's it's it's it's a nightmare that's you know i i do this much with our reality show that we do um you guys are a whole nother level and and uh people don't realize how hard you guys work thank you congrats on all your success
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
It's just something inside us as human beings. We are fascinated by who the toughest person in the world is. We are all drawn to it. You don't find out who's who and what's what until it hits the fan. Here comes COVID and you're looking at laying off 38% of the staff. There's no way in hell that I was going to let that happen.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Right. Oh, you love us, but, and we're so important to you. And now here's the scariest time that there's no way in hell that I was going to let that happen. No way in hell. We were either going to figure this out or we were going to all go down together.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
So, um, yeah, I, I put up my, my salary and my bonus if I was wrong and we couldn't make it through COVID then, you know, then the company didn't take the, take the hit.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I flew from Vegas. Oh, yes. I'm going from here to Austin right after this. Then from Austin to New York, New York to Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi to London, and then back to Vegas.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
It's important to me. If you don't have loyalty, what do you have? I mean, really, what do you have? If you can't trust the people you're around and with, and I mean, my people at UFC, a lot of them have been with me for, you know, the girl who's out in the hallway right now, my... My head of PR has been with me forever. And we're all tight.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
These are the people that I work with every day and travel with and do everything with. And yeah, we're all incredibly loyal to each other. Loyalty is a two way street. So they've been very loyal to me and I've been very loyal to them.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
I don't know. It's, I think that, I think that anything in life, like you see a lot of these people that, that work for companies and you give so much of yourself, uh,
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
when you work, time, energy, sacrifice, things you miss, you know, everybody has their things in their life, whether it's your kids, you miss the first step, you miss plays, you miss practices, you miss games, all these things for, you know, you have to make a living, but you're doing it for this company and you start to feel
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
a sense of loyalty to either the people you work for the place you work for whatever it is and when that loyalty isn't reciprocated it's a shitty feeling like my offices in Vegas I have this massive closet in there with all my clothes and all my you know all your shit that you want whether you want to change or you work out or you do whatever have a crazy gym spy you know I do all this
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
you know coal plunging and sauna I've literally the whole setup there I have the entire setup at my house too so there's never any excuses on why you can't do it um but you spend most of your time at work right you at least want to love the people that you go to work with every day and you know yeah hopefully you care about them in some way shape or form and they feel the same way about you
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
You can only be canceled if you allow people that you don't give a shit about to cancel you. Right. You have a core that you care about that are your people. I mean, if they cancel you, that's a whole nother story. Right. And then you should. Who gives a shit what everybody else thinks?
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah, I'm lucky because I got the best of both worlds. I had East Coast and West Coast growing up. So yeah, I wouldn't change that in a million years. I'm really lucky that I had both.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah. No, it's good for her. No, it's great for her. She's well protected.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Built-in security. I love it. It's perfect. It couldn't have worked out any better at that age. I had two boys older than her and then my wife had a tubular pregnancy. So her tube burst and her other tube was kinked and they said that she couldn't have any more kids. So we had two boys, we were good. And then we were in Cabo and she didn't feel good and she was feeling sick.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
And ended up, she was pregnant with my daughter. No way. And me and my daughter are super tight. We just flew to, she's going to the University of Miami. Oh, nice. Congratulations. We just went and toured the campus on Monday. And yeah, she's living down in San Diego. She loves it down there. We were on vacation in Italy and she busts out with, I want to move to San Diego and go to Cathedral.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Well, we looked into it and liked it. And it was actually a great move. She ended up doing her last two years of high school there. She loved the school. She loved the teachers, the kids. It was it was the right move.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah, no, you're never ready. It's weird when the house starts to empty out and you lose a certain energy in the house.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
No, the boys are both gone. My oldest lives in Boston now. He moved to Boston. He's working for Fanatics. Nice. And he's going to go to grad school out there. Awesome. And then my younger son actually is into anime. And he did a comic that's coming out with Dark Horse.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah. You won't. I can guarantee it. I won't. You and your whole family live in the same cul-de-sac. You're definitely not going to like being an empty nester.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Or buy the houses next door to you and they'll live there.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
There's nothing wrong with that. No. And it's awesome that you have a tight family when you think about the fact that you guys film together, work together, do everything together and still have such a great relationship. It's amazing.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah, listen, my mom was crazy. We're sitting here talking about family. My mom was nuts. And my dad was never around. So I think that me and my sister grew up fast. We were home alone a lot, because we had a single mom who was a nurse. She worked a lot. And we grew up in the 80s when, you know, it was a lot different growing up then than it is now.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
My parents were obviously much different parents. My kids were never allowed to sleep anywhere, go sleep over anybody's house or any of that, any of that kind of shit. So me and my sister did whatever we wanted to. We had to come home and do our chores and that kind of stuff. But we were pretty much on our own. So I think that we grew up a lot faster than my kids definitely did.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Hmm. That's a great question. I love solving problems. I love coming up with solutions to.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
So he's big. I haven't seen your brother in a minute. It's been a long time since I've seen your brother.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Yeah. And you have to love to get in the pocket and love stress. And it's a very sick, weird thing. It's like if everything's going too smooth, I sort of have to shake shit up and create more problems.
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
true i've heard that i don't know that for a fact but i've heard it and uh you know when you talk about retiring and me retiring i'm taking on more shit every day instead of retiring it's right um like the ufc isn't enough that's that's not enough of a job to do um now i'm doing you know like your brother told you power slap i got uh boxing now i was in boxing meetings all day yesterday um yeah so keep piling it on i love it
Khloé in Wonder Land
Built Different ft. Dana White
Well, you know this too. You've taken your health serious over the last several years. That's a full-time job. Jesus Christ. I mean, you start cold plunging and sauna and all the other biohacking shit. I mean, it eats up half your day.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I agree with you 100%. 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 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
What did you think when you saw UFC one with Hoyce? 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 the jujitsu guys had just laid there, you know, I completely lost interest.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It's funny 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, because 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, yeah. But when you first go in. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Our first jujitsu lesson, me, Lorenzo, and Frank was with John Lewis. Nice. And I remember thinking, holy shit. I can't believe that I'm, you know, 28 years old, and this is the first time I'm experiencing this, that another human being could do this to me on the ground.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It is such an eye-opening, 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 me and the Fertittas, and... That's how we fell in love with the sport. I think that the first time that you do jiu-jitsu, it's like the red pill and the blue pill in the matrix.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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? Jiu-jitsu is a real red pill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And I mean dominate. I mean completely treat you like you're a little kid. 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 side control. The pressure that this guy put on my chest... made me tap.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Felt like there was a car on my chest. And with zero effort from him. It was absolutely effortless. And when you train with somebody that's at such a level when you're not, 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 what your go-to submission was? Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So, 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. So you're okay being on like on bottom? 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. We started fucking around with a gi in the beginning.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
That's how we started. And then once I took the gi off, I felt like I had no submissions because I couldn't grab onto anything. So after that, I went all no gi, and I never wanted to wear a gi.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Or street. Street, yeah. Right? I mean, if you start off in your first year, you're in a Gi. You better hope a guy's got winter jackets on or something if something happens in the street. In my opinion, I know all the jiu-jitsu fucking people are going to go crazy over this, but in my opinion, no gi is way better than gi.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And the fact that you had... 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I mean, if you look at the way the Gracies played that, you couldn't have had a better advertisement for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at the time. But also, like...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
What's the real beautiful thing about jiu-jitsu? 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 or should I put her into this? You put your daughter into jujitsu 100% 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I mean, when a woman, no matter how big, how small can put a guy to sleep in three and a half seconds.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It started with John Lewis 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 ground fighting. And I said, yeah, I'm interested in it too.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So we went over, we talked to John Lewis and we made an appointment to wrestle with him on Monday.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And we told Lorenzo and Lorenzo came with us. And that was the beginning of the end. I mean, we started doing jujitsu 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, which was the furthest thing from the truth.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
These kids had all gone to college, had college degrees, most of them, because they wrestled in college. And we started to meet some of them. We loved the different stories. You had Chuck Liddell, who, you know, had this Mohawk, looks like an axe murderer, but graduated from Cal Poly, you know.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
with honors and accounting you know yeah 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
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I was in a contract negotiation with Bob Meyerowitz, the old owner of the UFC, over Tito's contract 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 him. 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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. So Lorenzo called Meyerowitz and
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. And you've said that you fought a lot of battles during that time. Oh. I mean, the early days of building this company and building the sport, it was the Wild Wild West, man. It was crazy back then. Yeah, I was literally at war every day with all different types of people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Plus, traditionally— There's bad people that are involved in fighting, man. There's lots of bad people. And we had to sift our way through that for the first seven, eight years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So there was a guy. I want to say his name was Todd Beard or something like that. This guy used to text me every day when they started their MMA thing telling me he was going to kill me. Like legitimately. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. You said fuck you. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Especially back then.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
yeah but yeah but i mean this is the type of shit that went on in the early days that 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
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
corrupt uh the guys that work for in-demand pay-per-view at the time uh were 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
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 shady people. Yeah, it's just everybody you deal with is shady.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
dealing with a lot of different forces and your hands are in a lot of different businesses, you know, from the venue business to the merchandise business to the video game business, 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, we had a production team that was the production team
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
That was in it before we bought it. So 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 production guys were arguing with me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
They're like, we can't leave this in. This is totally unprofessional. I said, I don't give a shit. This is what we're doing. 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 because 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
These guys were guys that were freelance guys that worked for Showtime at the time or something like that. I literally 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 I'll fire every fucking one of you. Let's just put it this way.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, 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 uh But it was the wild, wild west, man.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Well, that's the thing too. I mean, 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
There'd be eight to 10 people at our Christmas party, you know? Um, But a lot of it is you learn as you go. You know what me and the Fertittas knew about production when we bought this UFC? 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Well, you have to have the vision. Without the vision, there's nothing. So that's sort of what I do. Yeah. 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. And then you build the team to come in and help execute.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I get here at 9.30 every morning. Last night, I left here at 8.30. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, they are, they, 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Well, you have to know that 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 elf fight. We had a chocolate elf fight coming up and I, and they're like, yeah, your son's going to be born on this date.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And I'm like, yeah, that's not going to work. Right. We're going to have to take him earlier. Yeah. So they literally gave my wife a C-section and took my son early. You were all in. All in.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I was doing this when I was broke. Yeah. And I'm doing this now when I'm not broke. I'm doing this because I love it. And 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 the sphere? It's going to cost me a bunch of money. It's really challenging. Most people think it can't be pulled off.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And 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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, you know, the format for the sphere. Angles, we were talking about...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I just had a big meeting today about the sphere this afternoon and making sure that all my departments, all the details that I want all start to come together here in the next two weeks. I want the creative, the commercial. I have some goals.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. But yeah, 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 Mexican Independence Day.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And we're going to weave in the whole history of combat in Mexico into this event.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
The making of the Sphere, yeah. Are you feeling good about it? Oh, yeah. I feel incredible about it. I can't wait.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It's a fact. He doesn't care about money. And he did the first 13 shows for free for us.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. Yeah. So, and then obviously when we turned things around, we made it up to Joe. But-
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Joe is one of the things that I loved early on about, so I'll tell you the story. So we buy the UFC. They're based in New York. We're moving the corporate offices to Vegas. So I have to fly out to New York, go into the offices and start going through everything and figuring out what needs to come back to Vegas and what we can just throw away.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. These definitely we 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 Wayans show, right? The oldest Wayans brother. And he had a talk show at the time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 And he was talking about how people think that these guys in the martial arts movies are tough. And he was talking about what UFC fighters would do to these martial arts guys if they ever got their hands on them. And I was like, this is exactly what I need.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So me and Joe Rogan would alternate. doing these radio tours all over the country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 and, literally before it would happen. He would tell you the setup, what was going to come next and everything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
You just absolutely articulate it perfectly, brilliantly. And people at home started to understand. And 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 14 times a year, and he's always talking about the sport.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It's immeasurable what this guy has done for this company and the sport.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Joe Rogan is one of those guys. I saw that early on when Why would you go after the fear factor guy 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 one-way street. I'm not one of these guys that is going to roll over. It's like going through COVID. I wasn't laying any of these people. Some of these people have been with me for 20 years. We're going to lay them off? Mm-mm. This motherfucker will burn.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
burn yeah before i would do that to my people it's just it's just never that 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 know exactly what's up and joe knows what's up 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
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Yeah. Those low points. A hundred percent. What's incredible when you think of this, the story of the UFC, um, 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 08-09 crash, The UFC was killing it in 08 and 09, and the casino businesses were hurting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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? Mm-hmm. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
right so you being the the veteran that you are have to prepare yourself to go in and you know everybody was saying when we made that fight with saint denis that poirier was in big trouble that's awesome that 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
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Especially when you're a big name and a name that people recognize and a name that people 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Nate Diaz against Conor McGregor. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And if you look at the way that Khabib ran through so many people, Conor hung in there, you know. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. I'm telling you a story.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. Every weekend, every Saturday for a year. So there's lots of stories that need to be told. There's lots of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
When you think about what I compete with, whatever takes your attention on a Saturday night is my competitor.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 Bellator. You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And you feel that energy and you feel the difference of the impact of being here. And I think it takes a lot of these guys to another level.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
She was walking around with this sleeveless shirt the night of the fights, and holy shit.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So true. Especially in judo.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
John Jones, there's no debate. Nobody can debate who's the greatest of all time. It's absolutely positively John Jones. He's never lost. He's never been beaten in the octagon ever.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I don't disagree. But when you've never lost, right? You've never lost. We've never found somebody And the other thing is that you have to factor in too 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Oh, and the other thing that you measure is 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 John Jones started to change. Gustafson took him into the deep water.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Gustafson hit him with some shit he'd never been hit with. Gustafson tested him and put John Jones in a place where I bet if you sat down and interviewed John Jones, going into the deep rounds of that, John Jones thought he was going to die. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? And he's willing to go there. And he kept going. He was willing to do whatever it took to win that fight.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. It's undeniable. You can hate all you want. Jon Jones was the greatest of all time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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's been a great partner.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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... Fook it. Let's do it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. Conor McGregor never did that kind of chicken shit.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
you know, bullshit kind of stuff. He never did any of that. Connor was as solid a guy as you could possibly work with.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. So, you know, Connor has been incredibly successful.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
He literally set Europe, Australia, Canada, and many other parts of the world on fire, man. He was our first legit megastar.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
But it comes with success. When you're successful, there's always people out there that are going to talk shit. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
When you talk about being a legend, Conor McGregor needed Habib.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
habib needed conor mcgregor it's you can hate each other as much as you want but you have to fight these other legendary bad motherfuckers to to yourself become a legend i mean it's like john jones needed cyril gone right and cyril gone needed john jones because if cyril could have beat john the first guy if anybody can ever figure it out and beat john jones it's a big deal and it's almost like your obligation
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
As a fighter, right? And when you think about John 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 John. It's all about... giving these other guys the opportunity. St. Denis, right? Poirier gave him the opportunity to come in and beat him. That's how this all works.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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? Yeah. We would have nothing to fucking talk about right now.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So true. But when you have a perfect record in the UFC, holy shit. Right? Yeah. When you can have a perfect record in the UFC, you are absolutely one of the most special athletes on planet Earth. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. 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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 once 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, um, when we first bought the UFC, this thing was so bad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Venues didn't even want us. And we ended up doing, uh, 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, uh, 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. Then after that,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, one... Once he won the election, I'd be at work.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 uh ivana died the only time i've ever seen him fucked up
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, that's the first time I've ever seen that guy busted up and not good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
He will walk through fire. He's an absolute savage. You think he wins the presidential election? I don't know, man. It's going to depend on how this whole...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
politics is the most dirtiest scummiest thing on planet earth man and and who knows how this is all going to play out it's it's all dirty it's all ugly and you know obviously i'm rooting for him and and i'm behind him and and i hope he does um but we'll see what's dirtier the uh the fighting game in the early days or politics There's nothing dirtier than politics. Nothing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
There's literally nothing dirtier. All right. It is the dirtiest thing on planet Earth. I just wanted to get that on record.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I love Mike Tyson, and I'm not a fan of anybody fighting at our age. But he's a grown man, obviously, and 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 all-time human being. I mean, it's easy as a fight fan to focus on him,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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... You love it and you want to be looked at as the best ever, and you have the talent, the money happens. Then you have other guys who get in.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Believe me, I've dealt with fighters who just wanted to be famous and just wanted to make money. You know what I mean? 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And I mean, when you look at Tyson in his early years, when he came up under Costi Amato, I mean, he was a student of the game. He loved everything. He became...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 people like oh poor him he had fucking 100 million dollars and couldn't yeah
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 of that was Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner. They fought that unbelievable fight on The Ultimate Fighter. Everything blew up after that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Forrest dealt with fame really well and Stefan did not.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It was everything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Well, what happened that night is the rest of the show was a disaster. Mm-hmm. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Then Stephan and Boris got in there and just went toe to toe in this unbelievable slug fest live on free television when cable still mattered. And what I heard was at the time, um, You know, you had people picking up the phone going, are you watching this show? The numbers just started climbing. Then you got a razor thin decision. Who's going to win? You got the crowd stomping their feet.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 all came together. It's almost like, this was meant to be.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 had 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, you know, 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 was very dangerous time for him to be who he was.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It'd be on the side of buses in LA and New York. And 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 we, 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
The Spike guys did the contract with us in the alley on a fucking napkin after the fight.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Once that happened- and all the shit. And at that time, I didn't know what the ratings, not like we were streaming and we could see what we were, we had no idea, but I knew.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And when you think about what was at stake, there was a car. Remember the Kia? Yeah. The winner got a Kia, right? That's what was the fucking, right? And Stefan and Forrest, Yeah. 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. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, that car. I mean, you couldn't have a better fucking commercial than that. And we reached out to him too. I said, Kia should know about this. Yeah. They fucking blew it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
You got a bunch of... You know how those guys are in the business world. They don't fucking get anything. Maybe it was about the Kia then. It was about winning. They both wanted to win the Ultimate Fighter so bad. It's the Kia. It's the win. It's the... The contract you get, the whole thing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
They're both bad dudes. They were both real fighters at the end of the day. That's why the fight was so great.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
We all know 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,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 gonna fucking die right now
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 fucking,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Um, 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So true. It's so true, and it happens every fucking weekend. It's so impressive. I say it all the time. 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 fucking awesome. You love gambling.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Well, two things. I won a million dollar hand It's happened one time. A million-dollar hand one night at Mandalay Bay. And then one summer, I beat Caesars for $12 million throughout the summer. Throughout the summer. Yeah. And then I'm on a pretty good run right now, too. This is Blackjack. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Biggest loss was... i would here here is 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 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. And I make my way down to the high limit room. We start gambling. And I continue to drink, having a blast.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. So I'm at work the next day, and the host over there calls me and he says, hey, Dana, are you coming back? Do you still need the room that you guys had where you ate and all the shit you used to?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And I said, no, I don't need the room, but don't get too comfortable with my fucking 80 grand. I'm coming back for it. 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 only have a million and a half dollar credit line.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Yeah. Humor.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
He goes, yeah, you made us call the GM of the hotel and you started calling him a fucking pussy and da, da, da, da. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And then, you know, there's been a lot of cases where people are in Vegas and they're like, 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 taken advantage of. No, you stupid motherfucker. Man up. You got fucking drunk, right? They didn't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
the alcohol is free yeah but you don't have to fucking drink it you know what i mean and you know that 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 came back the most as far as uh having a bad loss and then you know
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Of course, I said call the GM, and I started calling him a pussy at 3 o'clock in the morning. Of course you did. That is something I would absolutely do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
They go hand in hand. The way 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 tell, you know, tally up all these little battles and see where I stand on when wins and losses. And, um,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
You know, there's lots of talk out there about my gambling, you know, places that I've been kicked out of and things like that. And... I do pretty well. I do pretty well, but it's what I like to do. I don't gamble in a way that I would ever hurt myself or hurt my family. I'm sure you've heard the Norm MacDonald stories.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Norm MacDonald lost his entire personal wealth four times or something like that. Yeah, that's not going to happen to me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So when I win... It's awesome. It's always great to win. Winning is a great feeling in business, in sports, in life, and definitely in gambling. Losing is never fun, but it's part of the game. You know what I mean? 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And you have to take them both in stride and you have to be able to, you know, 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
All right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
It's the truth though. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Sometimes I lose, but then I have to come back from the loss. And, uh, I love to build brands. I love to, um, set short-term and long-term goals and then knock them all down. You know, um, this is just the stuff that, that, that excites me and, and, and whether it's, um, business or, um, or gambling, or I like being a fan of things too. Like I like live music.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So when I find a, like 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I love that too. I love problem solving. I love... I love taking things that seem impossible and fucking what's been shit on more than this fucking company right here. 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I love negativity. So you almost feed on it. 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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I'm actually very superstitious about that. I believe that 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. It 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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, uh, the teacher is talking about some poem and he says, what does this poem mean to you?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 why would you... You're going to get docked a night's pay and all this stuff. She says, you know what, man?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. What he's saying about, you know, I'm fucking cooking in an overnight hotel fucking thing and I live in this shitty apartment. Yeah. a human being can lift himself upside down and backwards and kick a ball into a fucking net. And the whole stadium goes crazy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 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... Here are the messages that it's given you in this movie. It's excellent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
And, you know, 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I'd have been there in fucking 30 seconds to go up there and be a part of that. That movie literally changed my life.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 such a great movie.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. And you think when you're young that you have all this time. You have no time. There's no time. I mean, one of the quotes on the wall in the gym in there is, you know, there is no tomorrow. From Rocky III, you know, there is no tomorrow. Fuck that shit.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I don't care what color you are, what country you come from, or 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, if a fight breaks out, it creates this fucking energy, this buzz, this sense of fear.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I mean, a lot of different emotions happen in people when fights break out. But one thing that is always the case, everybody's watching, man. Everybody's fucking, 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. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
insecurity never fucking came yeah they just let these guys fight until they gassed out yeah 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
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Thank God we were right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Religiously, never missed Tuesday Night Fights. I was there, watched all those fights. 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, yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Yeah, 100%.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I want to do this with you right now. Hey, will you 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
But the presentation and a lot of things. But 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 listen to this. Listen to this entrance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Or that. Or don't say anything. Just let the fans... That's why we paid our money. You don't need to say anything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 him the whole way to the... First of all, one of the coolest walk-ins ever. First time anybody had heard DMX, right? That's right. He's walking into some scary, imposing music. Will it even matter? It's just all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
I literally used to analyze every... ounce of the production that would happen on television. And 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 commentary. I thought, you know, at the time...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 30 years. And then you had the time when Larry Merchant gets up and literally starts fighting with Floyd Mayweather during the interview.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
and says, if I was 30 years younger, I'd kick your ass right now. Oh yeah, I remember that. 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, cutting weight, sparring.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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 you get interviewed, and your interview is this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
So you know who goes in there and interviews fighters? Joe Rogan, right? Who has trained 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.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
Not, not, not these people who've never been in a fight in their fucking life, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
They really love it. Well, everybody does. I mean, if you look at, 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 passionate about the sport. And I would say that none of them that ever covered the sport back then were.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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. Anyway, you got me on this, and once I get on this, I lose my mind.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck
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.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
You know, people are talking shit now. Sellout and all this shit. They'll fucking say, believe me, I'm the furthest fucking thing from a sellout.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
Bud Light is the right move for me. They're exactly who I want to be with right now. And we are very aligned as far as core values go.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
If you consider yourself a patriot... You should be drinking fucking barrels of Bud Light.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
This is what happens when the machine comes after you.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the Nelk boys, Aidan Ross.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
And last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
On this season of The Ultimate Fighter.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
Do you want to be a fighter? That's the question. That's why I'm here. It's not about living in a f***ing house. It's about do you want to be a fighter? And only you know that.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
I'm sure most of you are wondering, what are you doing here?
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
And I wanted to show up and tell you about my friend Donald Trump, the Donald Trump that I know.
The Daily
Dana White, Donald Trump and the Rise of Cage-Match Politics
Let me tell you something. I've been in the fight business my whole life. I know fighters. Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump is a fighter and I know he will fight for this country.
The Dan Bongino Show
The Biggest FBI Scandal In History Is Unfolding (Ep. 2395)
I don't give anybody a leash. Well, I'm saying you... A leash? Free speech. I control what people say. I'm going to tell people what to believe. I'm going to tell people... I don't fucking tell any other human being what to say, what to think, and there's no leashes on any of them. What is your question?
The Dan Bongino Show
The Biggest FBI Scandal In History Is Unfolding (Ep. 2395)
Yeah, probably a good idea. That's ridiculous to say I give somebody a leash. Free speech, brother. People can say whatever they want, and they can believe whatever they want.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Dana White: Joining the Board at Meta, the Bryce Mitchell Controversy, and His Friendship With Trump
Yeah.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I was I wasn't thinking about the podcast today, but I was thinking about your brother today. And basically, there was this rumor out there that your brother wanted to buy the UFC and he thought that it could be big or whatever. And your father didn't believe in it. Your father wouldn't do it. I don't know if that's true, but that's the... There's a little bit of truth in that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
She was just saying that, you know, in Fall River, they put up a billboard of him. Yeah. It's just, it's a fact everywhere all over the world. When somebody comes from a big city, a small town, whatever it is, and they're perceived as somebody that's good at fighting, people give a shit.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Well... I think that your father had this thing where he had to create that. It was like his thing. I mean, I just told this story the other day. I don't remember where we were, but... So I'm on the one-yard line. We're about to get a deal done with NBC. And one of my big deal points was that The Ultimate Fighter had to be on USA.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So we're literally in New York for days hammering it out with all the executives over there. And finally they come back and say, all right, we'll do it. We'll put The Ultimate Fighter on USA. So the next day we come back and, you know, we're about to sign the deal and do all the stuff. And they're like, we can't believe this. We didn't know this. We just found out.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Vince McMahon has the right to determine whether another combat sport can come on to USA. And I'm like. What? How is that even fucking possible? And, yeah, so anyway. And it was in the contract. We'll fly out to Connecticut. We'll meet with Vince, and we'll see if we can get this done. We fly out. We go to the offices. We go in with your father. We sit down.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
We lay it out to him, tell him the story. He's like, yeah, I don't want you on the network. We're like, why? I just don't want it. So that blew up the whole NBC deal.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So then we pick up the phone. We call Eric Shanks. We fly out to LA and we do the Fox deal.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
The rest is history. Yeah. But life is crazy in these ways. You don't know what we would have done or how it would have played out, but we believe that if we bought G4- it would have killed us.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
right yeah every time there's new technology out we like to be first and we like to try it and see how it works and you know for instance i mean we uh i can never remember this guy's name but he was a piece of shit he used to run into man pay-per-view and then he went over and fucked up direct tv um and You know, he did dirty stuff to us when we were trying to get on pay-per-view and cable.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Then he's dirty over at DirecTV, too. So Ari and I said, fuck it, let's leave DirecTV and let's go to ESPN+. So we decided to go to ESPN and do ESPN+, and help them launch it. And it was the right move at the right time.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah. Everything is about timing in life. It really is. And some of these things... Work out the way that they work out for a reason.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Listen, you can roll over and take what seems like the easy path at the time. It's much better in the long run to take the harder path. Or what seems like the harder path, I would guess.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's easy to sit around and cry about, oh, I didn't get this or that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
When things don't work out, it's, for instance, you know, as the world keeps changing, I'm a big believer in streaming. I'm a big believer in social media. I think it's the future of everything.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I was doing video blogs and stuff like that before it was a thing. And now you're on the board of Meta.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Incredible, and I would say the thing that blew me, there's two things that blew me away, my first board meeting. First of all, how much Zuckerberg knows about his entire business. From every little, listen, I'll be honest, there's some shit going on at the UFC right now that I have no clue about, right? This guy knows every single thing that's going on in every single department.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's fascinating. Um, and then, uh, was it always like that?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So in my, in my time that I've become friends with Mark, what I've, what I've noticed about him is When he's into something, he's obsessed with it. He's obsessed with his business. There's no doubt about it. And now MMA, he's obsessed with and trains. If you have a conversation with him and we're talking about business, his business, he's hyper-focused and, you know,
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You veer off into something that he's not even remotely interested in. It could be anything. You lose him. He's gone. Yeah. He's a smart guy. And it's fascinating what he's built over there.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And my first board meeting, they brought in all the engineers to walk the board through AI and where it's at right now and where it's headed in the next, when I say like this summer, I'm not talking like a year from now, this summer where it's going to be. It's crazy. Crazy.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I think it's crazy cool. And it's crazy scary at the same time. Yeah. A lot of unknowns with AI.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah, I'm fascinated with technology and where it's headed. And I love it. I believe in it and everything else. But I will say this. I am so grateful that I was born when I was born and I have lived in the era that I have lived in.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I'm with you. I could not agree. Listen, these kids, it's an interesting time because when you're young and dumb and you make a lot of mistakes, everything's on film now. Everything's being viewed. Everything's on camera. It's crazy.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I don't know. But it wasn't. No, I guarantee you every one of those guys that see stuff now go, we beat the shit out of that dude one night.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
recover from something like that because it it can be so traumatizing you know like especially a beating like that it's not like getting in a fight that's well i'll tell you a funny story so i'm at my house one day so this thing these dudes beat the shit out of me and uh then the cops came there were people getting out of their cars trying to help and they got the shit kicked out of them too then finally the police came and they started fighting the police too yeah
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So I ran and got out of there when the police came. And I finally, I get a call at my house one day. So I had tickets to the Red Hot Chili Peppers the next day. And when I tell you I was sore from the top of my head to the tip of my toe, my whole body was sore. My ears were ringing. I actually lost the hearing in this ear from that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And this guy calls my house, and maybe it's a couple months later. I don't remember the time, but the guy's like, hi, my name is whatever. I'm legal counsel for whatever the guy's name was that he said.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
and I don't know who they are, how they got my number, and I don't even know what the hell they're talking about, but he's talking about me not showing up in court the next day, because if I do show up in court the next day, they're gonna file charges against, and I'm like, what is this all about? And then it hits me. I'm like, wait a minute.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
This is the kid that, that I got into this thing with that started these guys.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I always wondered, I'm going to show up in court and testify against them. First of all, I never was in contact with the police or anything like that. And, and basically I said, wait a minute, are you the lawyer for the kid that he's like, yes. And I said, is he there? And he's like, yeah. I said, put me on speakerphone. So he puts me on speakerphone.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And I said, basically, I said to this guy, you and your pussy friends, all 30 of you jumped me, you know, and beat on me for 30 minutes. And I said, and nothing was wrong with me the next day. I was there. You know, I tell this whole thing. And if I ever see you again, you know, and it won't be in court, I promise you that. And then I hung up on those guys. Well, good. Good for you.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
When you're young and, listen, you're hanging out in bars and you're doing stuff like that... Yeah, you feel like you're... You ask for it a little bit. Nothing positive comes out of being in a bar. That I guarantee you.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Nothing positive comes out of being in a bar. So it is what it is. Yeah, it... As far as overcoming something like that, it's just, when you're a guy and you're young and you're hanging out, it's the type of things that can happen to you. I bet you if you interviewed 15 guys.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
When I was growing up here in Vegas, there were fights every single weekend. And if somebody had a party and somebody from another school showed up, there was a fight. Now, my kids... two parties at my house every weekend going through high school, nobody ever got in fights. Nobody got in fights. It was pretty crazy.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Different generation, right? Yeah, it's a great thing. I'm not complaining, but it was definitely fascinating.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Right. And that's how you have to look at it. It does suck. It was hard when my oldest first left. But then you just have to realize, I got to be happy for him. He's moving on to that next stage of his life. If it was up to my wife, they'd all be still living at the house. Believe me.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And I did have, listen, there's different ways to look at role models, right? Like you'll hear people say, I never had any role models growing up. Yeah, you did. You just didn't look at it that way.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I learned a lot from my dad. I learned a lot of things. that I didn't want to be and how I didn't want to act and not just him, but can't put it all on him. I had uncles and aunts and all kinds of people that, that, that showed me, uh, what I did or didn't want to do.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And, and, and I've always been good at that, at looking things, looking at things for what they are and not being a victim, you know, while I was growing up, I didn't realize it was, you know, the way it was. It wasn't until, and even my relationship with my dad, um, I went through that phase when you get into your 20s. I'm like, it's my father. You know, it's my father. It's my father.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Then I had kids, and I was like, holy shit, wait a minute. This is the way you're supposed to feel about your kids? You know, so, you know, anything in life, nobody's life is perfect. Nobody's life is whatever, but you take the good with the bad, and you figure it out.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And you figure out who do you want to be and what kind of a life do you want to live and is the family thing important to you, the kids important to you and all that stuff. It's your life, you know. My dad was one of these guys that in many ways was just very selfish and he wanted to party and wanted to do the things that he wanted to do and that is what it is. We turned out fine. I'm good.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's like when you're young. Everybody gets a shitty job when they're young. You end up in some shitty job and you're like, ah, this sucks. But you have to have that job.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Because you have to know what you don't want to do. Yep. Right?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
My youngest son, he was going to school down in Orlando. Called me up and said, I have an idea that I want to pitch to you. I thought he was full of shit. I thought he just wanted to fly back to Vegas for the weekend or something. But he gave me this pitch on what he wanted to do. And I liked it. And I said, listen, I get it. And yeah, it'll probably work. So he wanted to quit school.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And I said, you can do whatever you want to do. You're old enough to do what you want. But if you quit school, you're getting a job. You know, you're not going to, you know, I'm not going to, you know, fund your life anymore. You got to get a job. So he was out in California and he started putting in applications at places that you put in applications when you're 18 years old.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And now Berger, he put in an application. He ended up getting a job at U-Haul.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Right. So he's working at U-Haul. And he's calling me every day bitching about this. He fixed taillights and he had to clean all the trucks out. Yeah, you know, lots of bad stuff that he had that he had to go through. And I loved every minute of every one of those conversations. Because that's you have to go through that at some point in your life.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Right, and the best teacher is experience. Yeah, and when you have parents who can just juice you here or there or whatever, and I told them, I said, if I drop dead tomorrow, Right here today, this is the job you're qualified for. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it's easy to pick up the phone and, hey, would you do me a favor? Would you do this and that?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
But if you're not going to school and you want to go out and you want to give it a shot and you think you want to start your own business, Got to go get a job first.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's true. Listen, when you first get your first car and your license, there's a sense of freedom that you feel at that age that you've never had before.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Then when you go out and get a job, no matter how bad it sucks or whatever, when you get that first paycheck and it's your money and you can do whatever you want with it, nobody can tell you what to do with your money, another sense of freedom that you learn. When me and my sister were kids, so I had a single mom. She was a nurse. She worked all the time. She worked overtime and all that stuff.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So me and my sister were home alone a lot. And my mother was a psycho with the chores. Like me and my sister had to clean the house, do the ditches. We had to do our own laundry. You know, all the yard work was done by me. And I swear to God, when I was a kid, I'd be out there mowing those lawns and I said to myself,
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
When I get older, I'm going to figure this out and I'm never going to mow a fucking lawn again in my life. And yeah, I don't mow the lawn. How old were you the last time you mowed a lawn? Oh, that's a good question. I was probably, you know, I was probably 17. Oh, wow.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah. Yeah. Well, until I bought a house. When I bought my first house, I mowed that lawn.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
That's a good question. I don't know, but I can tell you this. I always feel like I feel sorry for people who can't – not can't, but feel like they can't be themselves and can't say how they feel. And I don't know what they're afraid of. And I talk about this all the time, this whole being canceled bullshit.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And my philosophy on that whole thing is – The only ones that can cancel you are people that you actually give a shit about. Right. Right. It's true. I have my core of people that I hang with every day and people that I do business with and whatever. Your kids and people that you love and care about. Those are the only people that can really cancel you.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I think I give a shit what somebody on CNN thinks of me or some random newspaper or whoever.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Well, especially them. You know what I mean? But the people who... And I get, listen, we all make mistakes. I had mine a couple years ago. And, you know, you decide whether you want to keep going or you don't want to keep going.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And I get it that some people, once they start getting attacked and it feels like the whole world is coming down on you, quitting is probably the easiest thing to do, but not in the long term. Not hiding. You know, exactly.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah, I don't hide. So it's just not the way I'm wired.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I do it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've all been in that position before. We were at a restaurant. Where were we, Elliot? Detroit? The lady that came over to our... Yeah, exactly. So we're in Detroit in this nice restaurant, and we're about to go over to the event, right? We're going to the fight.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So I'll go like this to the event, and then I'll change and get in a suit when I get there or whatever. So we're sitting there having dinner in a great restaurant, and the place is packed, and there's two couples sitting at a table over whatever, and this lady walks over to us, right? One of the ladies from the table. And she says, hi, how are you guys? Uh, you know, I grew up in Detroit.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I've been coming to this restaurant since I was a little girl. My family would take us here and all this stuff. And I'm, I'm looking at this lady. I'm like, where the fuck is this going? Why is she over here? Whatever. Um, and, um, she says, you know, tells us the history of this place. And she says, uh,
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
you guys should have a little self-respect and, and you should, you should, you should, uh, you know, you should dress up when you come to a place like this and just start. And I'm like, and then all of a sudden my brain goes off and like, Oh, she's like, she's insulting us. She's like, I said, why don't you shut the fuck up and go back over to your table and mind your business and whatever.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And she looked at me with this look like that was not She was expecting to hear, right? She thought we were going to say, you know what, ma'am? You're right. We should have a little more self-respect. So then she goes over and she goes back to her table and sits down. And I'm like... Can you believe that just happened?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
What husband would let his wife come over to a table full of gorillas and fucking say this? So I'm the whole... I'm sitting there through the whole dinner going, I should have said this. And these guys were all like, no, no, no. You handled it fine. Yeah, you did really well. I've been crazy for like three days, but... I knew I didn't.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
But I think everybody has had that moment where, you know, you wish you said something else, but it happens.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Walk up to somebody they don't know. Right. And just say crazy shit to them.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And I don't understand why this lady's husband, he knows she's nuts. Why would he let her get up and walk over to our table? Well, this goes back to our original point. The owner of the restaurant came over and apologized to us and said. Well, that's good.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Can't control the patrons, right? I don't know why that's the thing when you asked me that popped off the top of my head.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Just build it from the ground up. You know, build it. You know my show, The Contender Series, where you bring in this young talent and you build them up. That's the plan for the boxing thing for me and I'm really excited about. Power slap has been fun for me. Yes, yes.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I haven't been part of something this successful in such a short amount of time ever. I mean, right now, if you look at just sponsorship, In two years, we have more sponsorship than the UFC had in 10 years.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah, the first call I made, the great relationship that I've had, For many years, it was with Monster. Monster's always been an incredible partner. So, you know, they were the first people I called, and I said, hey, listen, I'm going to do this. And they said, we're in. What do you need? So it started with them, and then the new rights deal we just did.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's like you said when we started this interview. If you look at the world of not only sports right now, but of, you know, television, movies, everything, Everybody's fighting over the same little turf right now. You know, the cable networks don't have the money that they used to have. There's a couple of big streaming services out there that are super powerful.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
There's opportunities, I think, with a couple of these companies that you would never expect. So when you and I grew up, we had Channel 3, Channel 5, Channel 8, Channel 13. Then around, you know, maybe eighth grade, ninth grade, cable popped up and it was like, I don't know, 30 channels more or something.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And then, you know, the peak... of cable was in the, you know, early to mid-2000s. And then now you see cable, you know, declining. And now I believe that globally in the next five to eight years, there's going to be a Channel 3, Channel 5, Channel 8, and Channel 13. And who are they going to be? Is it going to be Amazon, YouTube, Netflix?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You know, will one of the big, will Disney or one of these other big media companies be able to go global?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
This was my dream when we bought the UFC, where we would put on a fight and the world would be able to watch at the same time on the same channel. Because we used to have to go out and cut a million different television deals like you did worldwide. So I'm excited about that. And where I was going with this is all these people are fighting over the same turf.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
and trying to go out and get rights deals for, you know, their TV show, their movie, their sport, whatever it is with power slap. I like trying to figure things out. I want what I want when I want it. And I just got to figure out how, how to do it. And it's not. necessarily the traditional way to do it. So we just cut a deal with a company called VeChain. It's a blockchain company.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
They're our rights deal now. So they're our rights deal. And I'm going to put it on YouTube. Because what I care about right now, more than anything, when you're growing something like this, and it has the, you know... the attention that it does from people, you want eyeballs. You want as many eyeballs as you can possibly get.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And you, you want, you want to, you are, I already know it's a global business. This thing started in Russia and, and, and Poland. So yeah, I love it. I'm having fun with, and the thing that I love about power slap is it's very much like the UFC and that everybody was shitting on it and saying, ah, this sucks. This will never be a sport. This is her. I love that shit. Yeah.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Well, crypto. as a whole right now is pretty strong. Um, and obviously I think that, uh, this administration is, uh, in favor of crypto. And I think over the next four years, you're going to see crypto go like this. So, um, The guy, Sonny, who was the CEO of VeChain is a very smart guy. I believe in his business. And yeah, I'm excited to build this thing with him.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
A hundred percent. And like I said, I'm all in right now on social media, the internet streaming. Podcasts. Podcasts.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
All your contacts that you've been friends with over the years.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I prefer doing this over interviews with... That's my head of PR over there. You're going to ask her. I've been on top of this for years. You know...
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
influencers uh you know what they call influencers on the internet are the ones who have the true influence right now the media no there's nobody more hated than the media everybody hates them nobody trusts them even people who go in and do interviews um You know, you never know what they're going to throw at you. They always have some type of agenda.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
But with a podcast, you're going with people that you like, you respect, and you shoot the shit for an hour. Yeah, it's fun.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Well, if you think about, you know, the next couple of years for you, you're going to meet a lot of interesting people and have a lot of interesting conversations and you're going to have a blast.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Douchebags are an unfortunate part of life. Even in my own podcast? Especially on your podcast. Really? You gotta interview some douchebags that everybody would like to hear. Be douchebaggy? No, you... Fire questions at them.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Unfortunately, there's no getting around the douchebags.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
this will happen to you okay look at me act like I know what the fuck I'm talking about but let's see you know there will be there will be somebody that you will want to interview and they will show up and you will be like holy shit he's a douchebag or she's a douchebag right um did you see it will just happen it will happen you don't know yeah that's true you know I have this uh
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I would say this policy with myself in that people that I respect from afar and I like or whatever, it's probably a good idea not to meet them because, you know.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
The only fucking guy that I want to meet, that I give a shit about, that if I ever meet in my life and time's running out, is Clint Eastwood.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So I was very lucky. Have you ever tried to do comedy?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yes. Much like me. You can laugh at me. The difference with me and you is you grew up wealthy. You grew up in the limelight. You probably public speaking when you were fucking two. There's a lot of public speaking. For a lot of people, public speaking... is way out of their comfort zone. I don't give a shit. We can go speak anywhere. I can do that. You can ask my head of PR. We'll show up places.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing. I don't even know what it's about. And then we'll get there. She's like, you got to go up and do this. No problem. I'm going to do it, right? So we do a show called Looking for a Fight. And we try to go into these cities, take in what the city has to offer, food and all that shit.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And then we go to a local fight and hopefully we find somebody that we can bring into the UFC. So we always try to do shit to put us out of our comfort zone. We rode a PBR bull. I rode a bull. Yeah, like eight years ago. One of the dumbest fucking things I've ever done. And I've done some dumb shit.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
No safety equipment, no nothing. So you have this... Harness? Most normal people probably don't have this, but... When I was thinking about it, I'm like, when I get down on top of the bowl and they strap my hand in.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You have to go like this to tell them to open the thing. I said, I'm probably not going to do it. I'm probably going to freeze.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Oh, you'll do it. Because the bowl starts slamming your legs into the bars on the sides. Oh, my God. I threw my hand up as fast as I could. How long did you last? I don't know, a second. It wasn't much. It's on YouTube.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It just seemed like it would, you know, you face these things that you normally would never do in a million years. We went out in the middle of the water in Miami, and they chummed up the water and got all these sharks out there, and we fucking jumped in the water. That's the dumbest thing we did.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah. An oak shark cage. You just jump right in. Out of those two things, I'd do both of them again before I do stand-up comedy. Wow. I swear to God. It's just... And after we... So... We did this thing at one of the comedy shows, comedy places in LA. And I've like, I've been to the comedy places, you know, on some nights, unless there's like a big headliner there.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
There's a few people in the crowd and whatever. We'll go in there. Well, they advertise this thing. And when we pulled up to the comedy, there was a line down the street to get in. And the lady who owned the comedy place was so pumped. She was like, we should do this once a month. And I'm like... We're never fucking doing this again, lady. One night only. So we go in there. How long was your set?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
My set was probably four or five minutes. That's a while. to explain to you. I don't even know to explain to you how I felt before we went up on stage. I was fucking dying. Yeah. And once I got through that experience, I was like, I have so much respect for stand-up comics, especially the ones who suck or are in their bombing trying to make it as a comic, right?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
To go in and do that night after night after night is absolutely brutal. So I'm like, I will never,
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
ever fucking do this again and then they call me for the roast of Tom Brady right right and I'm like how am I going to say no to Brady and uh so I did it you know I said yes holy shit I'm not I'm not exaggerating to you when I went out when we got done and I left my body was fucked up for like three days really because you were so tense there was something fucking wrong with me
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Ever. I don't care who it is. Nope. No standup. You'll never see me do it again. Okay. And if you think you want to test yourself and you want to go out and go do standup comedy, get Bill Burr to write all your fucking jokes. Oh, by the way, I had professional comics writing my jokes. Not like I had to sit down and write jokes myself.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
But when you go in, especially at like A Roast, all the best comedians in the world. Oh, and by the way, I didn't know this. We're in LA and the venue was sold out. There's like 12,000 people there live. That's a lot of people. So you got all these comics, 12,000 people live, and then when it's your turn, the camera comes right up to your face. And you're just like, fuck.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You did. So I woke up that morning, the morning of the thing. I got my jokes, Tony Hinchcliffe. Who stole my joke that day? What's her name? Nikki Glaser stole one of my jokes. That's bullshit. And they told her that Dana White has that joke. And she's like, well, fuck him. He's after me. He's after me. Fuck him. What's he going to do, right? You're a professional comedian.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You're going to take one of my three jokes. So they figured out and they give me another joke. But the thing is, too, when you're on one of these roasts, right? Right. You got Tom Brady. You got Gronk. You got Kardashian. You got this one. You got all these people that these guys are writing jokes for, right? Yeah. They're calling me on my thing.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I'm getting like the piece of shit crumb jokes that fell on the floor that are just ridiculous because, you know, they're UFC based or whatever.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I literally wake up the day of the show and I'm in LA and I'm like, I'm in LA, you know, this is through the whole woke movement and all that shit was going on during that time. And I'm thinking about what happens if I start bombing? I mean, just completely bombing because I've never done this shirt. That's a great question, though, to have the I don't know how the setup is going to be. Yeah.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
So I fucking pick up my phone and I call Bill Burr. And this is how brilliant this guy is. It's like, by the way, he's about to walk out on stage. He's somewhere and he's about to walk out on stage. So I called Bill Burr and I said, hey, I'm sitting here thinking, I'm in L.A. doing this Tom Brady roast. What happens if I start bombing? Right. Literally, I shit you not off the top of his head.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
He says, hey, what? My name is Dana. Is that not trans enough for you liberal fucks? And I said, I'm opening with that. I said, that is fucking awesome. I'm opening with that. So then you have to submit your jokes, right? Right. And all the comics that are like sort of mentoring you, they're like, don't do this. This is not a good idea. Don't do this joke.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And the fact that that's the way they felt about it.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
These people who weren't giving you very good material anyway. I was hoping I was going to get booed on that one.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I didn't get booed. Yeah. But the moral of this story is... Don't do stand-up comedy.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Listen, I have a great life. I love what I do. I love the people I do it with. I get up every day and I can't wait to get to work. I'm there early. I'm there late. And politics just isn't for me. I can't do something that's I mean, realistically, when you think about it, you know, I know I'm close to your family.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
The only guy I've ever seen that was so hardcore, not full of shit and tells it like it is is Trump. I mean, he really does do it his way. And I don't know.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And I think that's why we're so close. I think that we are a lot alike in many ways. The biggest thing for me with Trump is, It's fascinating how this guy who was incredibly famous and looked at as his business man, he had his show for all those years, beloved by everybody on both sides. And once he gets into politics, they figure out how to make half the country hate him.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
They put out this narrative about him that people actually believe that this guy's a racist piece of shit, fascist, you know, scumbag, which is the furthest thing from the truth. Yeah, I want nothing to do with politics.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I will lead the UFC boxing and power slap. The country's going to have to live without me.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
There's different types of when you say leader, there's different types of leaders, right? there's guys who run companies, businesses, CEOs, whatever you, whatever the deal is, who, who are completely out for themselves. And, and, uh, you know, when there's money to be made, they, they snatch up all the money and do whatever. I'm not like that with, with my team and my people.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I want everybody that's with me to succeed and to, um, make a better life for themselves and for their family or whatever their situation is. When I consider you a friend or you're a part of my team, I'm all in with you and we're together. And I don't know, that's what I think when you talk about leadership. And that's the way I feel about Trump too.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Donald Trump loves America, and he cares about every American. Every American. He wants everybody in America to do well.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You know, obviously to have a sitting president show up to your event and love it as much as you do. You know, he's a huge fan. And he's someone you believe in. Yeah, yeah.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Steph, you know how many people How many people told me? When he called me in 15, right, and asked me to speak at the Republican convention, everybody told me not to do it.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Don't do it, don't do it. And I just sat there and I thought about it. I'm like, this guy's been so good to me over the years as a friend. And again, when he called me, he's like, hey, Dana, listen, if you don't want to do this, I completely understand. But I'd be honored if you'd come speak at the Republican convention for me. I'm not going to say no to that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah, I always feel like if you're true to yourself... How do you fuck it up?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's not even like being somebody else. It's like, this is America. Yeah. We can say what we want to say and we can feel the way we want to feel. And you don't have to agree with me. Right. And you can feel the complete opposite. That's the beauty of it. And we shouldn't hate each other. That's right. We shouldn't hate each other in a way.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Oh, I mean, if you think about Democrats and Republicans, uh, in the 80s and 90s, you know, they could talk. And it's like this thing with Trump and Bill Maher. And it was brilliant of Kid Rock to put this together. And to actually be there and see this play out was... A facilitator.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah. Unlikely. Yeah, these two sat down. And I'm going to tell you this. And me and Kid Rock say it all the time. If I take you to dinner, I don't mean you, you know, but if I take you... Any of you to dinner.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
With Donald Trump. You'll laugh your ass off for 45 minutes and nobody walks out of that dinner going, I don't like this guy. It's impossible.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
It's impossible. He's hilarious. He's a good human being. And you would think that, you know, you're going in with the president. Even Bill Maher said. I voted for Clinton and Obama. I know them both personally, and I don't think that I could have ever talked to them the way that I talked to Donald Trump. And it's the truth. He's a real guy. He's hilarious.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You don't go into a meeting or dinner and walk out and go, I don't like this guy. I hate him. It's impossible. Good on Bill Maher. Right. Absolutely. Good on Bill Moore and good on President Trump. Both of them to do the dinner.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
When you sit down face to face, unless, you know, your your podcast, when you end up with a douchebag on here. Yes. But both of those guys were it was it was a great dinner to be a part of and to sit back and and watch it play out and listen to them talk to each other.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I can't wait to see this thing blow up. And when I look at the podcast ratings every week, you guys are in the top 10.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Congrats. For your first podcast, you got a pretty big fucking team here already.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
I'm the producer of the podcast. What do you do? I'm cutting the cameras, I think. Cameras?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Audio. Audio. Engineering. All right. Comedy. You guys...
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
You know what you guys got to do? You guys got to come up with like a... You got to have like another screen here that when she says, oh, you can pull up like... You guys going to do that after when you edit? You put shit in there, yeah? Want me to shut the fuck up and mind my business? Hey, what are you, what are you, a fucking podcast producer now?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Because there's going to be somebody sitting in this chair that you cannot fucking stomach. And it will take everything in your power not to go, you know what? You're a fucking asshole. And then their response and everything and it'll go viral and there you go. You got to have douchebags.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Okay, I know Fall River. Fall River. Yeah, so it's funny when you, you know, people say Massachusetts and, you know, mostly everybody says Boston when they're not from Boston and, you know, they live on the outskirts or whatever, but you know where?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah, so from kindergarten to fourth grade, I lived in where?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
And then, man. I usually get all that. Me and Elliot over there love that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
The guy in the far right looked familiar to me too, but I can't, I can't peg it.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Dana White
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be sitting here right now if it wasn't for boxing. Boxing is what got me here. So, you know, Lorenzo and I always thought that we would be promoting boxing, and then we started taking jiu-jitsu, and then the whole UFC thing happened. But so much connection to you and your family because... You know, I had heard so many times. It's weird.