What The F**k Is Dana White Fighting For?

The role of fucking bad-guy scumbag fight promoter first came to White in 2001. The UFC was eight years old and failing: Political pressures were about to do it in. At that point, two of White's high school buddies, brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, a couple of fight-happy Vegas casino operators, stepped in and bought the company for $2 million. They handed over day-to-day control of the operation along with a 10 percent ownership stake to White, a former unknown amateur boxer.

Now the sport is being called "the next Nascar" and "boxing's replacement." And while other mixed-martial-arts outfits have sprung up, none is as big or has as much top-notch talent as the UFC. The UFC has former light-heavyweight champion Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell, whose autobiography recently landed on The New York Times bestseller list. It has furiously funny Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, an African-American who likes to refer to his boss as Dana "It's Good to Be" White. It has grinning, jug-eared Forrest Griffin, winner of the fight that helped put the UFC on the map. For the past three years, it's also had its own reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, which has been a huge hit on Spike TV. In fact, in terms of popularity, the UFC has pretty much eclipsed boxing, which is limping along with few standout stars. The UFC's pay-per-view numbers have been better. Its TV ratings are better. Its audience demographics, guys in their early-to-mid-testosterone-driven years, are better. Everything about it is better. And White is the guy who made it all happen.

That said, two of the UFC's biggest stars, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz, recently began raising hell over the size of their paychecks and fighter pay in general. Actually, all the fighters want more money. As a result, there has been considerable talk of late about banding together to unionize. And of high hopes that billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, whose upstart cable channel, HDNet, has begun featuring mixed-martial-arts fights as a main staple, can provide White and the UFC with some honest competition. And Cuban may have the deep pockets to do it.

None of this appears to worry White, however. It's around midnight, and he has pulled into an underground garage, taken an elevator one flight up and is milling around his office, surrounded by all the gimcracks and gee-whizzes of his success: a monster-size photograph of Muhammad Ali striking a classic, defiant pose ("Isn't that badass?"), four television sets, a hand-carved onyx skull ("Isn't that badass too?"), a few Bruce Lee action figures ("They're first editions! One of a kind!") and his own personal, portable AccuBanker money-counting machine. He sits down at a computer, checks on the Yahoo popularity rankings of an upcoming UFC fight, then looks up.

"Like Mark Cuban really thinks he's going to beat me?" he says. "I eat, sleep, breathe and live mixed martial arts. I love this shit. It's what I do. But look, at the moment, this thing we have is still really pure. It's not all fucking dirty like boxing. I know that day is coming. And when it does, I'm gone. But I love a good fight and, seriously, I really do have secrets and reasons for the things I do. So he's never going to beat me. Never, ever."

[Excerpt From Issue 1054 — June 12, 2008]