I hate this whole men's mental health stuff that they talk about. Unfortunately, when you're a man, you are the provider. You are the one that takes care of your family. You are the example for your kids when they grow up. You can't be that guy that's... I see these guys posting on social media, 'Oh, I had a bad day and I'm so sad' and all this other crazy stuff.
Oh, power slap. Literally, I saw these guys at 17, 18 slapping each other on social media. I took a deeper dive into it and I said, 'Holy shit, this is interesting.' This thing does a billion views a month. It's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of in such a short amount of time. If I took you to dinner with him for an hour...
You can be as far left and have whatever perceptions of him you have. It is impossible for you to get up from that dinner and walk away and say, 'I hate that guy.'
It's impossible.
Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Katie Miller podcast. It's our first week in our brand new studio in Washington DC and we're joined by the one and only Dana White.
So you are the talk of DC right now. Maybe you know it, maybe you don't, but the hottest ticket in town. I've been in Donald Trump's orbit for now a decade. I've never received more text messages for people begging for tickets to UFC. Why do you think there is so much interest?
Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously because we're going to be on the South Lawn, which has never been done before, and the card is incredible and it's going to be a great night. But you know, it's funny, we did a fight outside of Virginia over 10 years ago, but I've never really been to DC until his first term. And now I've been here so many times, I actually love this city. It's a great city. I love walking around here. The people are great. And I'm looking forward to doing this fight. All the vision, the logistics and everything are done. Now we just got to execute and pull this thing off.
So did you guys do a mock setup elsewhere to make sure that the setup would work on the lawn?
Literally just did it in Philly and now all the stuff is being trucked from Philly to DC right now.
Who came up with the idea?
The president did. We were at a fight and he leans over and says, 'We should do a fight at the White House.' And I said, 'Yes, yes, we should.'
So, how does one get tickets? This is the question.
So, there's allotments. Obviously, the president has the most. I have 200. Ari Emanuel has 200. And you know, we sent out invitations to people that we wanted to invite. RSVPs are coming in now and I guess the best way to get the tickets is through the president. He's got more than anybody, but there's going to be like people that we do business with, people that we invited, Ari and I, and then the president's invites. I think there'll be world leaders there, but there's going to be a lot of military there. The president wants all the branches of the military represented at the fight. And so more military people will be there than actual invites.
So, this is going to be a complete ignorant question. How did you select or who selects the card for this specific fight?
Yeah. So, I have a matchmaking team. The matchmakers went out and laid out every fight that was possible and then I picked the card.
And is this for those fighters? This is like their peak. They're very excited. Were people reaching out to you saying, 'Hey, I want to do this on the White House lawn'?
Yeah. I mean, a lot of guys and girls wanted to fight on the card. You know, I went with what fights really matter in the division, what fights we think will be great fights, and who can I count on that I know is going to show up and deliver.
You've been openly supportive of President Trump for a long time. Has that ever cost UFC any business either domestically or abroad?
I don't give a shit. I don't know the answer to that question. I've gotten to a point in my life, especially after COVID and all the nutty stuff that went on during that time, that I only want to be in business with and talk to people that I'm aligned with.
Were you always redpilled?
Redpilled like conservative.
No, no, no. I would have considered myself a lot more liberal. I would have considered myself an 80s or 90s Democrat. You know, but I'm more of a common sense guy. I'm not a very political person, but I'm all for common sense.
What was it that changed for you?
The world losing its mind and everything going nuts and most of the things that you and I have talked about during this podcast. I would still consider myself liberal in certain ways, but very conservative in others. I'm a little bit of both.
Do you think politics and sports should stay separate? And even outside of UFC, right, you're talking NFL, NBA.
Listen, I would love to. I think, you know, when you think about in the 80s and 90s, religion, right? That's basically what politics is like now. I mean these guys are everybody's fighting over all this crazy stuff and I think we should go back to you don't know who you voted for. But I think it's up to the athlete or the organization or whatever if they want to be involved in politics or talk on politics. It's up to the individuals or the teams or the leagues or whatever they are.
What's one thing you agree with President Trump on and what's one thing you disagree with President Trump on?
Well, I don't think that... doesn't have to be political. Yeah. Well, what we don't agree on is the best Rocky ever. We argue about that probably more than we should. It's kind of weird, but I think when somebody is president, they're going to do things you agree with and things you don't agree with, but you're not in that position and whoever is the president is. And at the end of the day, my relationship with him, we're friends. And you don't always agree with your friends on lots of things, but it doesn't mean you don't be friends with him anymore. He's a great guy. He's a great human being. He has a great family. I love his family. Ivanka and Jared are two of the greatest people you'll ever meet. So I don't really get into any of that stuff. As friends, I would say the biggest but weirdest thing we've ever disagreed on is which is the best Rocky movie.
How do you see the event at the White House shaping the future of UFC? Do you think it draws more fans in? Do you think it forever elevates that of combat sports?
Yeah, I think that more people are going to tune in globally for this fight, whether they have ever watched the UFC, like the UFC, don't like the UFC, just to see it at the White House. So obviously for the brand, I mean, even leading up to it, it's all anybody's talking about every time I see people or talk to people. So yeah, it's really big for the brand.
Who surprised you the most behind the scenes as you work with some of the biggest athletes in sports?
Surprised me as far as what?
That either was kinder than you expected, crazier than you expected, drunker than you expected, some type of when you meet somebody and you're like, 'Huh?'
I wouldn't say that anybody really surprised me, but I mean somebody like Conor McGregor, the first night that I went to dinner with him and met him, I literally left the dinner and called my partner Lorenzo and I said, 'Let me tell you what, I don't know if this guy is good enough or not. If he can fight, but this guy can even throw a punch, he's going to be the biggest star ever.' So, I did know that. And then I would say if you want to talk about surprised, it was probably Ronda Rousey because I was not even remotely interested in having women fight in the UFC at that point in time. I was trying to get people to accept men fighting in a cage and get it on television, let alone women. And then I sat down and I met with her and we talked for like 20 minutes. And 20 minutes into the conversation, in my head, I started going, 'Holy shit, I might actually do this. She's the one. She's the one that I think I could launch this whole thing with. This might work.' That would probably be the thing that surprised me the most in my career.
You walked away from fighting because of the long-term effects. I previously talked with Mike Tyson on the podcast and talked about how he has some issues from fighting as well. What do you say to others who are engaging in fighting? How has it shaped the way you run UFC? Have you put in place other things?
Good question. Yeah. Think about this. In the 30 years of the UFC, there's never been a death or serious injury. Cheerleading can't say that. Okay. We spend so much money on health and safety and obviously the big one is brain health. But when you're a young aggressive male that comes from places that people like you and I can never even imagine and fighting is your way out, or fighting is what you were put on this earth to do, you know, there's just no talking you out of it. And the stuff that's wrong with me from fighting, I wouldn't take back one punch. I wouldn't change any of it. It was some of the greatest times of my life. It was what I was passionate about. And you could look at there are people that work in coal mines and end up dying because of what they do and many other jobs, construction, you name it. Life is dangerous and one thing we know is we're all going to die someday. But how do you want to live and what do you want to do and what gets you out of bed every day and what excites you and what are you passionate about and no matter what it is, you know, some people it's jumping out of airplanes, some people it's, you know, everybody has their own crazy stuff that they're into. And as a grown adult you make these decisions on your own going in knowing what the dangers are.
Do you think you'll ever not do this? Do you light up like no one I've ever seen talking? Maybe except the president who talks about what he does. Do you think you'd ever not do this?
No. No. And I can't even imagine a day where I actually consider retiring. I just can't see it happen. I mean, I go on these vacations for 10 days, the generation before me when they used to talk about retiring, 'I'm going to retire and sit on the beach and drink margaritas.' You're bored. You know, all this. When you do it, how many days can you sit on the beach and drink margaritas? And like I'll be on a 10-day vacation and I'm like, if I got to put suntan lotion on my body one more time, get me the hell out of here. I'm ready to go back to work. You know, there's always these, you could take these breaks, but then you want to get back and you want to get up every day and be excited and passionate about something.
So, your wife you met when you were how old?
I think what blows me away about that is you look at fertility rates in our country. You look at the declining marriage rates in our country. You specifically look at I was reading an article today about how young women hate men more than ever. They're like men are good for nothing. You're like how did we get here? And so for someone like you, how did you know so young that that was meant to be your person and vice versa?
Well, I wouldn't say that we knew that young. We were friends. So, we were friends when we were in school and you know, we didn't get together until we were 25 years old, but we'd known each other. I think that probably happens a lot. People you grew up with, you know, that you've known for a long time and that you trust and have a personal relationship with are usually the people you probably end up with. I'm not saying that's always the case, but I would bet the majority of the time that's the way it works.
You have a lot of experience with young men and with young women. Are you seeing that trend where people are delaying finding your significant other, starting a family in favor of their careers?
Yeah, I think you nailed it. You know, it's a whole weird thing right now with young men and women. I think that the other thing that's happening is, you know, a lot of people are having kids and not getting married. Times are changing from when I was young. But these young men, I think, you know, we went through COVID and the whole woke era and all the weird stuff that went on during that period. A lot of the young males felt displaced and I don't know, it was a weird time. And you know, I always get accused, I've talked to Len, my head of PR, we talk about this all the time because she sits on all these interviews where I'm accused of being the head of the manosphere. Whatever that means and toxic masculinity.
The only people who hate toxic masculinity are women who hate themselves.
Interesting. I got men saying it to me.
What's that mean? What's that mean when you have men saying it to you?
It means that men in our country need to grow a pair again. Well, what's funny is I did this, I spoke at Harvard Business School and the guy who was interviewing me for the Q&A was the guy who did the Forbes story on me, I was on the cover of Forbes and he kept talking about the manosphere and toxic masculinity. By the end, I told Len, he's got me convinced. I think I might actually be a toxic male. You know, he was talking about my office and the things that are in my office and you know, I grew up in the 80s when men were men. Now it's a whole another world out there. And I just think that...
Don't you think it's that women want a man to take care of them, to step into that provider caretaker role, and that's so many men are not doing that these days? And that's why it's just called toxic masculinity is what is a traditional gender role.
It is never ever going to change. I don't care how powerful a woman is, what she does. Women want to be taken care of, treated right, and they want to feel safe. It's just that's nature, and it's a man's job to do all that. As I get deeper into this, you'll realize how toxic my masculinity is, but it's like the... I hate this whole men's mental health stuff that they talk about. Unfortunately, when you're a man, you are the provider. You are the one that takes care of your family. You know, you are the example for your kids when they grow up and your sons, you know, and your daughters. And you unfortunately, you can't be that guy that's... I see these guys posting on social media, 'Oh, I had a bad day and I'm so sad' and all this other crazy stuff.
Oh, it's just it's unattractive to other males, let alone women. I can't even imagine. Yeah, I'm really against all that stuff. So yeah.
I'm a strong believer in that. Like when feminism started increasing in our country, so did the decline in the birth rate because as they told women, you need to be equal to a man. You need to go to a workplace, women stopped having babies because they thought that's what they needed to do is have this career that served and the career ladder is how they were going to become equal to that of a man. And it's like when women lost their femininity instead of having a baby and having a family is the most beautiful thing I can do as a contributor to this society. Doesn't matter how much I make. It doesn't matter how much I earn or what my job title is. Being a mother is the preeminent role. And when societies told women that that wasn't it anymore is when you started having weak men. That's my theory.
Yeah, you could be right. I don't know how it all started, but there's nothing I hate more than when men don't act like men. It drives me absolutely crazy.
So, there's two divergent ways to discuss this with you. One is to say that in your own family, you have three kids. You have a wife that you're not on your second or third wife to my understanding. So, how do you think that having those traditional gender roles has benefited your family and benefited your children?
Yeah. Well, in every way. I mean, I'm the guy that goes out and I work and I provide, you know, for my family. And what my wife is really good at, like I'm busy. You were just saying, 'Are you traveling as much?' And yeah, I travel a lot. She's the one that says, 'I don't give a shit what you're doing. We're taking 10 days and we're going here for this and the kids have a play and this and that.' You know, she runs the house and makes sure that I am aware of what's going on with the family and we're going to go spend some real time together. Like I might not be there every day, but you know, we'll take three big trips a year and go away for 10 days and spend real good time together. I showed up, you know, my kids are older now. They're 24, 25, my daughter is 19 and she goes to college. And you know, I was there for if I wasn't there for their games or their plays or their whatever, where I was lucky in that I had one of the biggest production studios in Nevada. So, we would literally live stream their games and I would watch them and I could interact with them through, you know, because technology was, I was very lucky where technology was when my kids were growing up. But I've been a part of everything that they did growing up and still now today, even though my kids' favorite memory of raising your children when you're like, we were at home, we were doing this or I was carting them to this or that thing.
So, no matter how busy I was or what I did or how late I was out the night before, I always drove my kids to school and taking the kids to school, I used to love it and you know, there's tons of great memories of we went on a trip to Bora Bora one time and I tell everybody it's a pain in the ass to get there, but it is the greatest time that you will ever spend with your family if you take them to Bora Bora. It's amazing. Probably the greatest trip I've ever been on. And I love like Italy and some other places, but Bora Bora, you have to when you're done having your 43 kids, you need to, you guys need to when they're old enough, go on a trip to Bora Bora for a few days. And it's special.
Is it because you were off the grid or is it because the landscape? Like what made it better?
Everything about it. It is definitely off the grid. They have the huts that are in the water and you literally jump out your back door and Bora Bora basically, this is Bora Bora. It's the mouth of a volcano.
That Bora Bora is in. And then once you get out it's like in the middle of the ocean, but inside the mouth of this volcano, like the greatest, and I'm not a big ocean guy and all that stuff, but the greatest snorkeling you could ever do.
It's just hard to explain. You have to experience it. I'm just telling you, I've done just about everything you could do. When your kids are young, take them to Bora Bora, and I promise you when I see you in a few years again, you'll tell me you were right. Greatest trip we've ever been on.
All right, I'll add it to our list. So, what did your wife cook dinner every night for your family? And how did that work? Family dinners, that's very important.
Yeah. Well, she's Italian, so yeah, family dinners are important. You know, and on Sundays she'll have her family over and our kids and her family is very involved with the kids and everything too. Grandparents are, you know, there's nothing better than having good grandparents. I had incredible grandparents. So you know, it's special.
So I said there's two divergent ways to look at this. One was through the fact that you live by example and you have a beautiful family. And then the second is to say that you have a lot of young men. I would say that you're responsible for at UFC and young women. What do you say to them and what encouragement do you give to them to kind of stay on the right path so to speak?
Nobody has ever asked me that before. So obviously, we get into situations where we will take these people that nobody knows and then all of a sudden whether it's coming off the Ultimate Fighter Contender Series or just coming into the UFC and then all of a sudden you start to become famous and fame is a very weird thing and some people deal with it well and some people just nose dive and mess their whole lives up. And I've dealt with both. And one of the things that I've noticed early on, and I'll give you the best example I can give you, is the Ultimate Fighter. So, The Ultimate Fighter, we film the show, then it airs, and there's a gap between when they leave from filming to when it actually airs. So, I always tell them, you know, I don't know anything about your life personally, but as soon as this show airs, everything's going to change and it's going to get really weird. Whoever gives a shit that you're coming home tomorrow is probably who you should stick with. And it could be girlfriend, wife, it could be your trainers, your managers, whoever they are. As soon as you start to become famous, all the creeps are going to come out of the woodwork and start, you know, trying to work their way into your life and tell you all these things that they can do for you. And it can be anything. Managers, women, whatever. Whoever gives a shit that you're coming home tomorrow is probably who you stick with. And I've seen a lot of these fighters start to head toward divorce once they become famous and they start to make money. And I always try to encourage them not to do it, especially if they have kids. Especially if they have kids. Because I've seen so many people, you know, you go out and you're on the road, 22,000 people are going crazy when you walk into the arena, pictures, autographs, and then you get home to reality and you got two or three kids and your wife's like, 'Take the trash out. Do this. Do that.' And these guys, you know, egos start to get in the way. And so if you end up getting divorced and then you get remarried and you start all over and you left these kids behind, the grass is greener. It's going to be the same shit with a different person. You know what I mean? That's just the reality of life. And I try to talk these guys out of it. And I don't know. I don't know if I answered your question, but that's the best answer I got.
Do you encourage them to find someone and settle down? Do you find that that makes someone better or do you just not care?
How does that work? That's beyond your purview.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is none of my business. None of my business. But when these guys start to go through it in their marriage because fame is a very crazy weird thing and everybody thinks they want to be famous till you start to be famous.
The only thing famous is good for is getting into restaurants. Other than that, it's useless.
How much money does a guy go from making? So say they go from being broke to how much how quickly?
Well, it depends on, I mean the best example would be Conor McGregor.
You know, he was on what you would consider welfare in Ireland when he started and you know, guys made hundreds of millions of dollars.
When you took UFC from near bankruptcy to being a global powerhouse, what moment was it for you that you were like, 'Okay, I got it. This is going to work'?
The Ultimate Fighter, the finale of The Ultimate Fighter season 1, Forest Griffin and Stefan Bonner fought and as soon as the fight was over, I said, 'That's it. We got it.'
Is there something else in a parallel today that you look at that's also failing where you're like, I could go take that from zero to hero? That's outside of UFC because if you've done it once, you can probably strike gold twice. So, what is it?
Power slap. Literally, I saw these guys at 17, 18 slapping each other on social media. I took a deeper dive into it and I said, 'Holy shit, this is interesting.' And I called the Fertitta Brothers and I said, 'Hey, I'm into this slapping stuff. I think I'm going to do this.' And they said, 'How much money you need?' And I said, 'I need a million dollars from both of you.' So, all three of us put up a million bucks. And this thing does a billion views a month.
A billion views a month. Yeah. It's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of in such a short amount of time.
Did you bring them into the Trump orbit or how did that work?
I think that, well, they're hardcore Republicans.
And you know, my relationship with the president enabled me to create a relationship with them with the president.
So if you look back at the history of what you've done for UFC when you went to the Fertitta brothers and said let's do this to present day, you've done a lot of time, energy, spending trying to recruit, retain good talent and really turn around UFC from when you went to them and said let's get going. What do you think today as you're still trying to build the brand, are you still traveling as much, what are you looking for when you go look for a potential fighter, where or do you think are the new like up and coming markets?
Yeah. Yes. I still travel a lot and it's all about finding new talent. So the difference is the UFC has become a global sport now. So there isn't a place on earth that I can't find a fighter. I mean we're going to do a fight for the second time this year in Azerbaijan. We haven't done a fight in Spain yet, but I can literally get a fighter from anywhere in the world. So, people when I grew up, your parents would put you in karate or taekwondo. Mixed martial arts is the new martial art that everybody trains in whether they're going to become a fighter or not. So, it's much easier to find talent now than it was 25 years ago.
Do you find that consistent across foreign countries?
Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, especially in places like Russia and you know a lot of these rough countries, there's a lot of talent coming out of there.
How much of your day do you spend just doing operations versus recruiting versus building new events?
All of it. I mean, I literally do all of that every day because now I'm involved in boxing. You know, I told you power slap, the UFC. So, we're always looking for...
new talent in all of those different companies. We're always looking where are we going to put on the next event. You know, that's all part of everything that I do every day.
Do you personally review every new fighter that comes in? Like do you just know now when you see somebody?
Yeah. Well, what happens is I have a matchmaking team that teams me up on the guys. We do a show called the Contender Series, which is literally the best show on television if you're a fight fan. All unsigned guys come in.
They fight right there. It's like a job interview. And I don't care what you've done in the past. You're obviously really good. That's why you're here. Or the matchmakers wouldn't show me right here, right now who you are and what you have. The best fight show on TV. And we do that once a year. And that is like my favorite thing to do. I could do that. I actually like that better than seeing the big stars fight. So, I'm all about recruiting and watching and evaluating young up-and-coming talent.
What's been the best event you've put on and the best fight you've watched?
The best event I've ever put on? It would have to be the Sphere. I would have to say the Sphere. You know, have you been yet?
All right. When you're in between having kids, here's what you need to do. Whatever band you and your husband love, you have to see them play at the Sphere in Las Vegas. It's a really cool experience. Or what you do is you take your kids and you all go to Vegas and you do the Wizard of Oz because they have the Wizard of Oz playing in there.
I said that's much more my speed.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like the Eagles did a stint there and you know all these great bands. It's a really cool experience. So the best event I ever did was there. Hardest one we've ever pulled off until the White House. And the best fight I've ever seen. I mean, that's a tough one. We just figured out that in my 25 years of doing this, I've watched over 10,000 fights.
Yeah. So to pick one that was the best I've ever seen would be tough.
So there's been a lot of celebrities who have come to UFC. Did you know that they were coming in advance? And who's been like, 'Oh man, I cannot believe they came to my event.' There's got to be one of those moments.
Well, yeah, probably. I don't remember exactly when it was, but I would say the only one that I didn't know was coming was like we're at an event one time and somebody goes, 'Bruno Mars is here.' I'm like, 'Bruno Mars is here.' So, I walk over to him. And I'm like, 'What are you doing?' He's in these seats over. I'm like, 'What are you doing? Why don't you...' He's like, 'No, no. Buy my own ticket.' Buys his own tickets, walks in the front doors like everybody else does, sits in his seats, then leaves. Bruno Mars. And speaking of Bruno Mars, have you ever seen him?
I don't care if you don't like that type of music. I don't care if you don't know one song. If you've never seen Bruno Mars in concert, it is one of the greatest. He's one of the greatest performers of all time.
Did you go to his concert after he went to UFC?
Yes, I did. So, I went and saw a show. He does this, he plays at the Park MGM Theater, which is a small venue. When him and his band play, you feel like there's nowhere they'd rather be than right there on stage playing. It's one of the greatest shows you will ever see. Anybody watching this, if you've never seen Bruno Mars, trust me, you need to.
