Issue 097

January 2013

The UFC president as you’ve never known him before – on his loves, his life, his inspirations and how being hated has made him who he is today.

Dana White is a man with a thousand opinions and the most powerful CEO of any sports organization on the planet. But how much do we know about him? He has become an icon in the last decade, shaping the fight game like no other individual. Yet he remains private, without being guarded. But in an exclusive interview with Gareth A Davies, White reveals the family man at his inner core, the truth behind a career-troubling disease and an acceptance that being hated is part of his success.

Several renowned writers have offered to help pen White’s autobiography, and he’s turned them all down flat. Legend has it one has already been researched and written, but then, in a volte-face, he changed his mind and decided against its publication. His father was not around when he was growing up, his mother was an alcoholic. Yet when the subject of his family, his children, is broached he is the most loving father imaginable; insistent he will learn from the lessons of his youth to enhance the lives of his own kids.

White reveals a taste for modern art and culture, yet is happy to be seen as simply a fight fanatic. He’s an atheist, yet is content to see his sons embrace Catholicism and a Catholic education, welcoming the religious precepts of kindness and respect. Above all, he wants his boys to have values… This is Dana White as we’ve never known him before. Dana White unmasked.

My first insight into Dana White in his own environment is having lunch with him and fellow UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta in a restaurant/kitchen at the end of their Las Vegas head office. Few from outside are ever invited here to dine with them. Two chefs, trained at the renowned Nobu restaurant, are on hand. Cooking away with ingredients from five continents stacked at a long metal breakfast bar.

The two men at the heart of the Ultimate Fighting Championship are enjoying fine dining, 10 meters from their respective offices. It says two things about them: time is of the essence, and they want to eat well. “The food in the environs here was s**tty, and we don’t want to be eating out because there’s work to be done,” White explains. Fertitta, who has converted his working life from Station Casinos into the UFC, is intimidatingly quiet. He’s always thus. A man taking everything in.

There are many facets to Dana White, away from the bustle of press conferences, promotions and fight nights. He likes to gamble. And why shouldn’t he, as a resident of Las Vegas who has developed a reputation as the biggest tipper on the strip? Stories abound of him playing blackjack (his game) high stakes – which led to him, by some accounts, falling out with The Palms Casino Resort because they cut his credit rating – and leaving tips that can reach the same magnitude. The point here is he knows how to reward workers. Let’s not forget he was a bellhop himself – and he’s never forgotten it.

“If you speak to the guys I was friends with back then, they’ll tell you I’m exactly the same guy,” White maintains. All that’s changed is his house is bigger, a private jet transports him from one place to the next and his trophies are a little more – well, frankly – from the top drawer in collector’s items.

Like the Andy Warhol painting from the Camouflage series he owns. “I’m more low-key than people think I am,” he offers. “I’m sure you’ve seen on the internet, there’s nothing anybody wants more than to see my wife. They want to see my wife so bad, it’s crazy. And she’s nowhere.”

This is a metaphor. For privacy, for the fact White the fight man is Dana the dad when the door closes, and the gloves are off. He’s renowned for his views and strong opinions, yet rarely talks of himself personally. Nonetheless, the UFC president reveals money does not drive him, religion intrigues him deeply and, in reality, it gives him little pleasure talking about himself.

“I hate talking about myself, man,” he says, admitting his best and worst qualities are likely the same. “Probably how honest I am. I’ll say exactly how I’m feeling, definitely my best and worst quality.” It gets him into wars, but also out of them. And vice-versa. But issues get sorted at a pace. 

Zuffa HQ

White reclines on a XXXL white sofa in his air-conditioned office at Zuffa HQ, yet he’s always ready to pounce. Phones hum outside the open door, from which Marc Ratner, the VP of regulatory affairs, soon wraps his head around and raises his hand. Lorenzo too has just prowled past to his office next door. 

White is a megastar in his own right, boasting a Twitter following approaching 2.3 million and with a small army following his every move. Every utterance from him – be it a view on an issue or a new move for the UFC – is magnified and mulled over as if he is writing MMA’s creed. Some hate him – but many more love him. He tells me he rolls just as easily with both sets. 

There are signs of his mind and his belief system placed ubiquitously, yet subtly, around White’s office. Like the Old and New Testament Bibles carved into guns in a frame hanging on the wall in an alcove out of view, and a saber-tooth tiger skull sitting on a plinth as a paean to fighting to win. A totem that says we are sitting in the company of a man happy to decorate his room with artifacts from the top of the food chain.

However, White’s wealth, he insists, is irrelevant. What truly drives him – every day when he awakens – is his own struggle to bring the Ultimate Fighting Championship to the entire world. The exact same has caused an ear illness (called Meniere’s Disease and involving vertigo and hearing loss) to affect his sky-skimming promoter’s life. He’ll need a procedure to fix it.

“I’m going to have it taken care of in the New Year. This thing sucks, man. I got it real bad when I was in England (in September). I love going to the UK and the Nottingham fight was miserable for me because of this thing. I wanted it taken care of in October but our schedules couldn’t be figured out.”

But he’s brashly unconcerned about the long-term quality of his life. “I don’t give a s**t about my health. I mean that. If I drop dead tomorrow, I’m cool with that. My kids and family are taken care of. People tell me to slow down, take a break, but I’m not built like that. I won’t slow down.”

Let the haters hate

We talk about losing. And he admits he hates the thought of it. “I’m trying to think of the last time I lost. But I don’t like it; it sucks. I don’t like to lose. When someone comes out and they publicly challenge me, we’re gonna fight and I’m going to win.”

Like his rivalries with the now-acquired Strikeforce and Pride, maybe? “I’m the kind of guy who, if you want to fight, we will fight. You don’t get to try to fight me and, when I start kicking your ass, get to stop fighting. No, you wanted a fight, let’s fight until you go or I go. That’s the way it is with me. I’ve got enough to do at the UFC and don’t need to be thinking about anyone else. I hope they do well, good luck to them, but if they want to fight, then we will fight and I’ll win.”

That’s unlike the competition from boxing, White says, “there’s room for both,” but it’s similar to the Twitter wars he’s famous for. He once offered to fly someone to Las Vegas to settle the argument with him after it got heated over 140 characters.

“Don’t say anything to me on Twitter that you wouldn’t say to my face,” he says, in all seriousness, “because if you did I’d tell you to go f**k yourself. And that’s how I’m going to handle it. It’s the way I am, and I’ll never be any different. If you are going to say dumb s**t to me, I’m going to say dumb s**t back to you.”

White has grown from absorbing the wars and hatred. “It has helped me to grow. Everybody who says negative things is being a goof, but there are a lot of negative things people say which you can get positives out of, because they are giving their opinions: this is wrong, that is right. You can use this stuff. Some of this stuff I agree with. The point is, I embrace the haters too.”

A bulb flashes in his head. “Do you remember when I was nominated for Time magazine’s most influential people or whatever? What they were impressed with was how many people wrote in and said, ‘This guy should not be allowed onto this list.’ They say that’s the gauge of how popular somebody really is. If you’re hated, you’ve made it in a way.”

And as for the UFC.com hackers, who tried to ruin the company’s website recently, White brushes off, “That goofy kid just got sent to jail. Good riddance.”

Love, life, money

Money. It counted when the Fertitta brothers were investing in a black hole when the UFC was first finding its feet under Zuffa, after the group purchased it in 2001. White is now reputed to be worth in the region of US$150 million. Does the money matter? His face doesn’t change. “I don’t give a s**t about money. Money means nothing to me.

“Happiness to me is being successful and enjoying your life. It’s actually the money side that makes you miserable – if you let money make you miserable. If you’re a happy-go-lucky person and you enjoy what you do and you’re passionate about your life, if you are that guy, whether you’re flat broke or you’re the richest guy in the world, it makes no difference. I have done both and I’m the exact same guy.”

So, what makes him sit up and listen? He thinks. “My kids. I’m very into my kids. I love to see my kids succeed and try new things. My kids mean everything to me. The way I try to live my life, and this is the honest gut truth, I try to live my life with no regrets. I do. Everything that I want to do, I say what I want to say. It’s hard for me to say that I have any regrets. I think things out before... sometimes I do things in a rage but I usually think things out more than people think I do.”

He hates bullying. “Let’s say somebody is beating a girl. Roger Huerta, when he knocked that dude out, there couldn’t have been a better answer. That guy deserved to get knocked the f**k out for hitting a woman. I love that Roger did that.

“I’m so against bullying. My kids have been trained in Muay Thai and wrestling for years. When you see these videos on YouTube of these kids getting bullied – like four or five kids attacking another kid – it literally makes me sick to my stomach.”  

And his kids are his greatest accomplishment. “Definitely other than my kids, if you’re talking professionally, the UFC is my greatest accomplishment. When I die – and when it’s over it’s over, I believe, by the way – what I want is my kids to get up to that podium and say, ‘He was a great dad.’ As long as my kids say, ‘My dad was a great dad we had a great life growing up, we’re normal people, a part of society, not into drugs,’ I’ll be happy. Your main number-one job as a parent is to keep your kids off drugs.

“I don’t feel guilty one bit (that he works so hard). I’m around every weekend I can be. We don’t have a fight, I’m with them as much as I possibly can. And, believe me, their life growing up doesn’t suck. And I know. I grew up with my mom struggling. She was a single mom, alcoholic, the whole deal. I went through all that s**t, so when you grow up that way you want better for your kids.” 

In fact, the most expensive thing he has ever bought is his family home. “But that thing (pointing to the saber-tooth tiger skull next to his desk) has got to be a close second.”

The future

Could the UFC survive, without Dana White? It’s one of the most frequent debates among fans. Would it be the end? White disagrees, at least, not the UFC that exists today. “I look at the UFC like McDonalds. The guy who started McDonalds, he passed away and McDonalds still goes on. The foundation has been built, the seeds have been planted all over the world.

“If I left tomorrow would the UFC be different? Yes, it’d be a little different. From the production and all the things you see, it’d definitely be different but nothing would be bad. Earlier on, the first six, seven years, maybe.

“This is probably the cockiest thing I’ll say about myself, and the Fertitta brothers are included in this… I don’t think anybody could have done what we did, in the first seven years. The whole thing, from the day we bought this until seven years later, nobody could have done that.

“There were a lot of crazy decisions that were made, a lot of things happened and a lot of gut and balls and a lot of passion. We made a lot of right decisions early on. Some were not fun decisions but I don’t think anybody else could have done it.”

Will someone have to tell him to retire, like he did with Chuck Liddell, or is there anything he might do after his UFC work is done? “No, I’ll go when the time is right. I’ve still got a lot to do and, I know how this sounds, I don’t think it will get done if I leave. We’ve got six more years on this Fox deal to go, and by the end of it the UFC will be mainstream. Maybe then it will be time for someone else to do this. But I got too much to do right now and I love doing it.”

Dana's Top 7 celebrity Twitter pals

Justin Bieber – Followers: 30,215,078

Judging by his songs you wouldn’t necessarily think of Bieber as a stereotypical MMA fan, but the teeny bopper has sat in the front row debating the action alongside his father and White many times.

Snoop Dogg – Followers: 10,209,966

There’s nothing like a friendly bet between pals, but when you’re big spenders like Snoop and Dana, a friendly bet can involve a lot of cash. Snoop recently won a 20k wager when his Lakers beat White’s Boston Celtics.

Shaquille O’Neal – Followers: 6,428,791

One of the most famous NBA stars in history, Shaq has almost become part of the furniture at UFC events, and once begged White to set up a fight between him and Hong Man Choi.

Ricky Gervais – Followers: 3,485,598

Not only is Gervais one of the funniest comedians in the world, he’s also good buddies with Dana, who offered the British comedian tickets to go to the UFC on Fox event

in New Jersey.

Tony Hawk – Followers: 3,233,528

A big extreme sports fan, White actually had Hawk, the greatest skateboarder ever, teach his kids how to skate.

Mandy Moore – Followers: 2,529,133

Don’t be fooled by her squeaky clean image and innocent looks, Mandy Moore is about as passionate about MMA as anyone could be and has spent plenty of time cageside with Dana. 

DJ Pauly D – Followers: 4,178,601

Pauly D and his Jersey Shore cast mates have been to a number of events since their show opened, and with a residency at The Palms we wouldn’t be surprised if he and Dana had shared the occasional fist pump.

White to wear

A renowned T-shirt lover, White has likely never been seen wearing the same short-sleeved threads twice. FO relives some of his greatest hits.

PARENTAL ADVISORY

White likes to laugh at himself on occasion. Not only is his ‘Parental Advisory Explicit Content’ tee a perfect example, it well describes White’s famous preference for choice language.

CHRIS LYTLE FOR STATE SENATE

Repping your former employee’s bid for state senate? Highly commendable. Former UFC welterweight Chris Lytle was unsuccessful, but you should never underestimate the power of a DW weigh-in shirt. 

JUN FAN GUNG FU

Bruce Lee fan White has paid homage to the martial arts master through more than just the medium of T-shirts over the years. A particular favorite would be his ‘Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute’ number.

MIKE TYSON

A friend of White and the UFC, ‘Iron’ Mike has featured on a number of Dana’s weigh-in and video blog torso warmers. Can’t go wrong with the former heavyweight champ.

DEAD KENNEDYS

See also Rage Against The Machine, Cypress Hill, Red Hot Chili Peppers, PIL, The Cult, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, the list could go on. In short, Dana likes his music-related shirts.