Dana White Part 1

UFC President Dana White joins Shannon Sharpe at Club Shay Shay for a comprehensive and entertaining conversation that spans the history and future of mixed martial arts, personal anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes stories.

Shannon kicks things off by reminiscing about his experience attending UFC 1. He then dives into his recent participation in "The Roast of Tom Brady," sharing what it was like to perform in front of 12,000 people, his unique relationship with Tom Brady, and the process of crafting his jokes, including calling comedian Bill Burr for advice. Dana gives credit to Drew Bledsoe and Shannon takes a light-hearted jab at Kim Kardashian, to which Dana offers his own praise. He concludes with high praise for Tom Brady, calling him a savage.

Dana then dives into his upbringing with a single mom who worked as a nurse, growing up in a lower-middle-class environment, and moving from Boston in the fifth grade with a thick accent. He shares his lifelong love for fighting, dropping out of college after less than a semester, and the reasons why college didn't suit him. Dana recounts being run out of Boston due to FBI investigations involving Whitey Bulger, fleeing to Las Vegas, and how that move turned out to be fortuitous.

Upon arriving in Vegas, Dana became Tito Ortiz's manager despite his lack of qualifications, which he candidly discusses with Shannon. He explains what he saw in the UFC, then on the brink of bankruptcy, as a golden opportunity and purchased the company with the Fertitta Brothers. Dana believed in the universal appeal of fighting and worked tirelessly to turn the company around. He discusses the challenge of getting people to understand Jiu Jitsu and credits Joe Rogan for his pivotal role in popularizing the sport.

The conversation also covers the UFC's groundbreaking move to Spike TV, financing the first season independently, and the emphasis on live event experiences over TV broadcasts. Dana explains how he convinced Joe Rogan to become a commentator after seeing him on the Keenen Ivory Wayans show and an interview where Joe expressed his passion for fighting.

Dana then talks about his roster of fighters, particularly Conor McGregor, noting how money changed McGregor in ways it never did Tom Brady, and praising Conor's charismatic "gift of gab." He wraps up by discussing UFC 303, the upcoming fight at the Vegas Sphere, the challenges posed by MGM, the event's homage to Mexican Independence Day, and how it's designed to be more than just a fight—an unforgettable event.

Join Shannon Sharpe and Dana White for this first half of an episode packed with riveting stories, valuable insights, and the kind of in-depth discussion that makes "Club Shay Shay" a must-listen for sports fans and fight enthusiasts alike.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What about celebrities participating in power slab.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
It will eventually happen. Hell, no, it eventually.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Who the hell?

Speaker 3 (00:06):
What did it?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Shannon? I'm gonna have you pretty sure.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hell all my.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Life, grinding all my life, sacrifice, Hustle paed Price, one
slice got the brother of Geist.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Swap all my life.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'p be grinding all my life, all my life, grinning
all my life, sacrifice Hustle paed Price, one Slice got
the brode Geist. Swap all my life. I've been grinding
all my life.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Hello, welcome to another episode of Club Shasha. I am
your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the propriud of Club Shasha,
the guy that's stopping by for conversation and to drink today.
He allowed me into his domain. He's one of the
most successful business people in the world. He's highly influential
sports figure in the sporting industry. He revolutionized the sports
of mixed martial arts. One of the greatest fight promoters

(00:58):
of all time. He's the CEO of the UFC, the
world's biggest MMA organization. He's a powerhouse, a global phenomenon,
a marketing genius, a mogul, a maverick, a head Honcho.
Some call him a savage, the legend, one of the
most influential people in sports.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Dana White, I'm glad I showed up just the intro alone.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Now you, sir, bro, what you had to do to
get here. We were supposed to sit down yesterday, but
you had had a conflict. You had to go to
your sons graduating.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
My son's graduating. You know, big ship show down in
US THEE in San Diego. I had to fly there
all my wife, some stuff, planes landing to get me. Today,
HiT's a bird blows the engine out. Can't get me
another bird. I'm like, the universe did not want us
to do this podcast. The universe here we are.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
But you're here, and Bro, all your success growing the
UFC and we're going to get into the UFC. What
it was. I was at the very first UFC fight
and old McNichols, or before it one Ken Shamrock lost
to Gracie back then they had no weight classes. You fought,
you win, you advance, and you keep fighting, you keep fighting,

(02:11):
and so uh, what you've been able to grow it to.
I don't think anybody foresaw this, uh, but what you've
been able to do, I want to toast you, bro.
You know, I have my own cognac in shaved by Laportie.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Do I need a connac when they tell you the
afternoon that's pretty smooth? We got yours right here. What's
pretty smooth? You have Howlerhead, which is a bourbon. It's
a bourbon, it's a flavored bourbon. And uh, I started

(02:42):
it during the pandemic. It's fun. It's fun being in a.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Looking I started in the pandemic. Also, we kind of
started a little before, but the kind of you know,
we're going to release it, then the pandemic happens, so
it got pushed back. But you and you you in
this business, and you understand the three tier system. So
it's just not like, okay, I want to say you
they and you got to go through distributor and then.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
They go to grind absolutely full time. It is job.
It is.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
It is fun idio is. So let's get right into it.
The roast with Tom Brady. Yeah, first of all, could
you let someone roast you.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
After doing the roast? No, now that I've done it,
I would never let me tell you this. For the
people that don't understand the roast of Tom Brady, right,
there were twelve thousand people there live right, twelve thousand
people live right. Then you have you know the days,
all the guys that are on the Dais, plus some
of the badst comedians in the world were there. You

(03:38):
had Chappelle was there, Chelsea Handler was there, guy from England.
I gotta remember this guy's name, but he's he's huge.
And ye, Ross and Cliff, but they're all there. Everybody
was there. Well, then the people that you saw on
the dais too, right, Now you have to get up
and tell jokes. Public speaking is whatever. A lot of
people have fear of public speaking. Public speak all the time.

(04:01):
Telling jokes is a whole nother ball. Yeah. Then when
you're up, cameras come running up and they're right in
your face. Twelve thousand people, everybody's staring at you. And
now you got to tell jokes, you know, and if
you've got one word, if you stutter, if you if
you go into a downward death spiral that you could
never pull yourself out of. I'm telling you it's the

(04:22):
most underrated thing in the world being a comedian and
getting up and telling jokes, right, I will never.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Ever because I think the thing is you and I
I'm a little older you, Dane. I think I'm a
little older to you. But I remember the roast with
Dean Martin. In order to do a roast effectively, you
got to have some people like he actually said that,
Well it's another level. Yeah, the roast with Dean Martin

(04:49):
were funny and fun and whatever. It's it's killed. It's
supposed for the kills. Yeah, it's like it's a whole
nother I love them. I love roast. I'm a fan
of rus not getting roasted, or I would.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
I don't mind getting roasted, going up and roasting someone
else and telling jokes. Is it's not as easy as
everybody thinks. It is so hard to do.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
So when you found out this is like, hey Danel,
we're going to roast Tom and we want you to
be a participant. What was the first thing, because I
know the relationship that you have with Tom, And then
what was going through your mind?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Where he was like, oh, man, well what are a
couple of things? When they first asked me, I hung
up the phone and called him. I said, they must
have paid you an ungodly amount of money to do this, right,
He said, they really didn't I'm just a fan of
roasts and I want to do it. I said, okay,
you know, so he obviously gave my name to be

(05:41):
whatever I said, I'm in. I'll do it, which I
said I would never do again, because I do a
show called Looking for a Fight, when we put up
ourselves in uncomfortable situations. We did stand up comedy one
night at a comedy club. Okay, it is the hardest,
it is most brutal, worst thing that I've ever done
in my life. And I said I'd never do it again.
I will really never do it again after this roast.
But I did. I did it for Tom so Then

(06:03):
what happens is the producers start calling you and they
got people that are writing jokes. Now understand this. They're
writing jokes for Brady Gronk, Edelman, Belichick, Kraft, Kardashian, Uh
uh his egg yeah, no, uh for Bledsoe. The list

(06:27):
goes on and on. Right. I'm I'm sixty seconds, so
I'm getting the piece of Joe promise it fell on
the floor. You know what I mean. They're gonna be
all these jokes that that are like UFC based that
you know I would have never He's like I was
at meat would leave me meat on that back? It
would It would have been brutal. So I called in

(06:49):
a favor. I called Bill Burr. Me and Bill Burr
are friends, Me and Bill Burr in the way that
we think and the way that so Bill Burr helped
me with with some of my jokes, and uh yeah,
thank god, or I'd have been a sitting duck out there.
But that's the way that it works. And uh yeah,
it's let me tell you, it's not as fun as

(07:09):
you people like, oh, you must have had a blast,
had a blast.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Bledsoe.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
I give Bledsoe all the credit in the world. You
could tell when Bledsoe first went up there, he was nervous,
he was first, right, Oh you gotta go first, right? Yeah,
he killed it. He pulled himself together, he got through,
and he did a great job in my opinion. Even
Kim Kardashian and I don't know what's true and what's
not true. What is true is they booed the shit
out of her wins really, oh they booed out of

(07:37):
her when.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
I mean you hear, but you don't. I mean I
hadn't talked to anybody that was actually there. And you
hear the media report that Kim Kardashian was booed, but
here and you talked about it, they really boomed.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Oh no, they booed her, and they boot her so
bad that, like Jeff Ross stood up and said, come on,
come on, everybody stop. You gotta understand. I mean, when
you looked around the crowd, everyone's wearing football jerseys, it's
not crowd. It's not a it's not a Kardashian crowd. Yeah,
and well she should have feared right in.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
Oh my man, that man data I was a rare
for I'm getting ready for roads. I'll get ready for
our road. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, kill, I'm sorry. I
just couldn't re see it. But what happened was I'm
hearing that Netflix. First of all, Netflix gets all the
credit for having the balls to do this, yes, and
not only do it, but do it live. Because comedy
had taken a hit with political correctness of all this stuff,

(08:24):
and everybody was afraid to do a roast.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
These guys did a roast that did it live. Yes,
I'm hearing that in the replays they edited out the booze,
which is crazy because Kim Kardashian is not an actress.
She does reality TV. Su I've done reality TV. It's
totally different than being an actor and acting. You go
on and you do what you do. What you do
in the camera will follow one hundred. Now, she got booed,

(08:47):
and she powered through it. She powered through it, She
did her set and whatever. It takes a lot of
balls to get up there and do that, and she
did it. But you know when you when you step
up and you do a roast, Like my second joke
that that that I told was so, I wake up
that morning and I start thinking about what if I

(09:07):
start the bomb? Right? If I start the bomb, what? What? What?
How could I attack the crowd right and whatever? I
called Bill Burr and literally I said to Bill, if
I start the bomb, how can I attack like the
l a California crowd that's there or whatever. He pauses
for like two seconds and says, what my name is, Dana?

(09:31):
Is that not trans enough for you? Liberal? And I go, oh,
I'm opening with that. I'm opening with that. I'm right.
So so when I when I put the joke in that,
all the comedians were telling me, don't do that, don't
do that. Joke. You're not going to get the response
you think I said, Oh no, no, I literally want
to come out and do right in the face, you

(09:54):
know what I mean, and that that was how that happened.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Did you could you get a sense because I say,
you know Tom. You've been around Tom in a private setting,
not you know, the politically correct Tom. So you know
him a lot better than a lot most people could.
Did you. Could you says that he got a little
uncomfortable with it or did he just like he was tall?

Speaker 2 (10:14):
He definitely wasn't uncomfortable Tom Brady. You know, everybody talks
about Brady like you know, he's soft and he's a
pretty but he's a fucking beast man. That guy's a savage.
And you know, again, when you're in positions like we
are in, you don't worry about yourself. It is you're

(10:36):
you signed up for this ship, you know what I mean.
In life, you do what you do. You say things
every day, you do multiple podcasts, you're on television, you
say things that you know you're going to be attacked
for your opinion or whatever it is. It's just it's
hard to see your family get kids, you know what
I mean. Exactly. It's all more about the kids. And

(10:56):
you know, there are a lot of great things things
that come with being our kids. You know, there's a
lot of yes, a lot of negatives. Yeah, and you
gotta take the good with the bat. Not everything's gonna
be perfect. My kids see it all the time. People
say horrible shit and people say things. Who gives a shit?

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Were you really upset that you only had sixty seconds?
Did you really want three to five?

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Menus?

Speaker 5 (11:17):
That was how I. I wanted six seconds. You wanted
one joke and get away. I wanted six seconds. I
would want sixty seconds, And no, I was not upset.
The thing is, too, is that even politically like like
that that joke. Yeah, I'm not really that much of
a political person and I definitely do not attack people
for their political views.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
And this is American right. You can believe whatever you want.
It was a roast and it was a joke. So
you so you was fucking thrilled that I had sixty seconds?
Believe me? So?

Speaker 1 (11:47):
So would like you get up there like man, cause
if I mess up one word, the joke's not gonna
come off as it intended. And then people go like
it was a great night, except Danel Blue.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Then you got three more jokes. How do you recover
from that when you're not a professional comedian. A professional
comedian can recover from anything. You do what they do.
When you're a regular guy and you go on one
of these things and you mess up a joke, you're
in a downward spiral death. That's gonna seem sixty seconds
would seem like six hours. You know what I mean.
It's brutals.

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Speaker 1 (13:30):
Let's get into you up bringing Dana. You raised in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vegas,
main as a small kid, What was Dana white.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Light as a kid. I don't know, you know, I uh,
you get in trouble. Yeah, I've got a lot of trouble. Yeah, yeah,
that's a good question. Yeah. I got a lot of
trouble when I was a kid, but I had You know,
when you look at your life and you look back
on it, you know there were certain things that weren't,
you know, great about my upbringing. But I'll always had

(14:00):
fun and I always thought that I was living a
good life. I was always happy, always loved where I
was and who I was with and things like that.
Was I wouldn't change one thing about the way.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
How would you describe your family? Were you middle class?
Upper middle class, lower middle class.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Lower middle Yeah, a single mom who was a nurse
obviously made good money, but worked twenty four hours a
day to support us, and me and my sister were
alone a lot. You know, we we sort of kind
of raised each other onred percent or raised ourselves however
you want to look at it. Yeah, did you fight
a lot of the kids? Yeah, got into a lot

(14:40):
of fights, especially here in Vegas. Vegas was a Vegas
was There was a lot of fighting going on here
in the eighties, like school versus school, right like that.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
So, I mean, being in Connecticut and Massachusetts, did you
have that accent? Did you have that Bostonian accent? And
people make fun of you.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
What was funny is because we moved here in like
nineteen seventy eight, and I was in fifth grade, okay,
going into fifth grade, and so they thought I had
an accent here. Then after I was here for a while,
then they thought I had an accent when i'd go
back to Boston. So I always had this messed up
accent out of where I was.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
So you got so, you got jumped, you fought, and
then you like you got good at it? Did you
get good at fighting?

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Or you just like, yeah, well I liked it, just
Sidon braced it. I liked probably the way you liked
playing football, the way that I felt about fighting. Growing up.
I loved everything about fighting, lots of different fighting. You know.
I was a huge boxing fan. I was a big
Bruce Lee fan, you know. So I liked martial arts
and I liked all kinds of fights. I like street fights.

(15:46):
I mean at school, there would always be fights after
school at the park. Everybody would be excited to go.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Did you think you were gonna be a fighter? That's
something like, well, you know, maybe I be a boxer,
maybe I'll be a martial artist.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
I didn't really think that until I was probably eighteen
or nineteen years old. Is when I started to think
that fighting was something that I wanted to do for
the rest of my life, and not necessarily a fighter.
But in the fight business, I read where you got
kicked out of school with it for fighting. I got
kicked out of school multiple times. I was kicked out
of school multiple times. I barely graduated high school. And yeah,

(16:24):
between grades and fighting and lots of other things.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
You go to college, but you don't stay very long.
You drop out. Why.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I went to college for less than a semester.
I think it just wasn't for me. I went to
school and I was just like, it's not me. Unfortunately,
this isn't my future. My son is going to graduate
college this weekend. I'm literally flying back to San Diego
tomorrow for his graduation weekend, and I'm so proud of

(16:54):
him and happy for him. It wasn't my path. It
just wasn't for me.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
But when you look at it, you look at a
lot of people. You dropped out of college. Oprah, Steve
joh The Job, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gayes, Kanye West, Jack, Dorothy,
Paul Allen. Why do you think a lot of successful
people choose that path? Because you know, we get go
to college. You gotta go to college, you gotta get
a degree, you gotta gey YadA, YadA, YadA, and so
many people that are successful chose a different path.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I think a lot of the people. I'm not saying everybody,
I'm just in my experience with this, A lot of
kids that go to college don't know who they are
and what they want to be and do for the
rest of their life. I was very fortunate, and I
think these people were probably the same. Knew exactly who
we were and what we wanted at a very young age.
I mean, there's still people that are thirty walking around

(17:42):
trying to figure out who they are and what they
want to do. I knew, I knew. And then once
you know and you lock in and focus on it
and go for it. It's hard not to be successful.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
But and maybe a college degree isn't a requirement for
what you want to do in life or what you
want to become in life.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, I think you know. I read this book recently.
Rick Rubin wrote a book and it's brilliant. It's so good,
and it talks about how a lot of the people
that become succesful. It's like when you go to college,
you learn all the rules. They teach you all the
rules of bus business and whatever. It may be. Kids

(18:25):
that didn't go to college, don't know the rules, so
they break all the rules and do things differently than
the kids that went to college.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
A lot of time, kids that don't go to college,
they're willing to take risk that people that went to
college because like you say, you learned the RULESY like,
we don't do that. But if you didn't go you
don't know the rules, so you break the rules.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
And I am an excessive risk excessive risk taker. I
mean I literally take risks to a whole another level.
I love risk. I love adversity. I love it's like today.
I mean, I don't care who you are, how much
money you have, what you have going on when you
get out of bed. Every day, life is standing right

(19:02):
there to punch you in the mouth, and you know
you have to overcome all these different struggles in life
every day. I actually love when adversity is thrown at
me and I and I have to deal with this
stuff and and it's one of my favorite things to do.
So I'm a little sick and twisted and I like
I like the conflict every day. I like powering through

(19:26):
the challenges that life throws at you every day. It's
like one of my favorite things to do. Is it
true you got ran out of Boston? You could call
it that. Yeah, did you owe somebody money?

Speaker 3 (19:38):
No?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
I didn't know anybody money, But that's the way. Uh,
that's the if you if you've ever seen the movie
Black mass or you hear the stories of Whitey Bulger. Yes,
it was one of the most notorious gangsters in American history,
was in cahoots with the FBI, and you know, that's
that's where I lived, and that shit was going on
at that time, and it was very real, and so

(20:00):
you're like, okay, I'll leave. Yeah, well, you know when
you're staring down the barrel of those type of people,
you know, I just booked a one way take it
back to Vegas.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
And so did you understand why you were being run
out of town? Were there something like you owe money?
Were there something that because you know, you have to
pay a tax on goods? Or were you trying to
run an operation? Did you infringe on someone's territory?

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, I mean I didn't know anybody money, But I
mean that was life and that city at that time.
And it's crazy the way that life works out. Because
I wouldn't have come back. I think I would have
eventually come back to Vegas. That was always my plan.
I wouldn't have done it then, and the timing wouldn't

(20:45):
have been right for me and the Fertidas to connect
at the wedding that we were at. And the list
goes on and on, and I'm sure you have a
million of these stories yourself, the way that life works,
and all these paths you end up going down for
whatever reason that led you to sitting in this chair
right now talking to me.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
So you come to Vegas and you you become a manager.
You ain't got no experience in being no manager. You
managed Tito or Tez, you managed Chuck Ladea. How I
barely graduated high school? Yeah, so I didn't have any
experience doing any of the shit. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
You barely graduated high school and you thought, like, you
know what, college is a good idea.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
So I came out here started doing what I was
doing in Boston. And Bob, how old were you when
you came here? I was twenty five, ok, and then
it was actually I was twenty four. It was my
twenty fifth birthday, like days after I moved back to Vegas,

(21:48):
and I started I just got back into the boxing.
I knew what I wanted to do. I was going
to be in the fight business. Started doing my thing
out here and then ended up, you know, meeting lots
of Floyd Mayweather. I mean, me and Floyd were together
when he got off out of the Olympics, and we're
doing stuff together, started doing stuff with Chuck and Tito

(22:08):
and John Lewis, who was our jiu jitsu instructor at
the time, and the list goes on and on, and
it all just started to build into where we are
today because me and the Fritita started taking jiu jitsu
with it. The only guy that was teaching jiu jitsu
in Las Vegas at the time, a guy named John Lewis.

(22:29):
That's how we started to meet a lot of these
fighters and training with them, and then Chuck and Tito
asked me to manage them. So I started managing them.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
And did they know you didn't have any experience in
managing people?

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, I mean I was probably, I think they just
I don't know what it was that that, you know,
ended up getting these people to all sign with me.
But listen, I was the type of guy that got
she had done so they knew that. They knew that.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Being a manager, you understand both parts because now you're
the CEO of the UFC and you're having to negotiate
and deal with managers. So how was it for you
being a manager in this for the very first time,
and you're trying to extract as much money from an
organization as you possibly can, all the while understanding that
they have to run a business, and at the end

(23:22):
of the day, business is business.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Right, and being a manager is a very fine line
you walk because you want to get as much money
for your guy as you can without destroying the relationship
with the as absolutely you know what I mean. So
that's how the whole saling down. So Tito or Tez

(23:47):
had been screwed over by them, and they were supposed
to pay the money that they didn't pay them. So
I was trying to get Tito a new deal and
get the money that they use over from before. So
in that negotiation, the owner at the time, Bob Myerwitz,
flips out on the phone and finally says, there is
no more fucking money. I don't even know if I

(24:08):
can put on another show. Da da da da da,
And he snaps and freaks out on me. So I'm like,
holy shit. I hang up the phone and I literally
picked a backup and called Lorenzo for Tita, and I said,
I just got off the phone with Bob Myrowitz. I
think the UFC is in trouble. I think they're going
to go bankrupt, and I think we should buy the company.
So I literally had that call at Lorenzo. I gave

(24:29):
him Bob Myrowitz number. He called by Myerwitz, and that's
what started the conversations for us to buy the UFC.
So I mean, in that negotiation is what led to
us buying the UFC.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Danny, you said something interesting just a few seconds ago.
He says, as a manager, your job is to try
to get as much money as you possibly can without
destroying the relationship. And I tell people that I would
rather take a little less than have somebody begrudgingly give
me more, and it ruins everything down the road.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
You're absolutely right, And you know there's this when when
you're a manager, right, So you're trying to get as
much as you can for your client, You're trying not
to damage the relationship with the organization. Yet at the
same time you also realize if I'm managing you, your
life literally, your life is in my hands, correct, Right?
And I tell fighters this and other athletes all the time,

(25:24):
be careful who you get to represent you, because that
is exactly what they do, because they are representing you. Right. Yes,
any way that this negotiation goes south, I can. I'm
still gonna make a living. I got five or six
other clients, but you the one guy that I'm managing.
If I burn that bridge and destroy that relationship, I

(25:46):
burned your bridge, correct, not my bridge, right, your bridge. Wow,
you say you picked up the phone you call the
Fetida and how did you get before? You say, how
did you guys become friends? How did you know the
Fertita So Lorenzo and I went to school together in
Las Vegas. Okay, okay, we're in the same class. It's
not like me and Lorenzo were best friends growing up

(26:08):
in high school. We knew each other, right. He came
from money, I did not. But the Fertitas were always
really good, solid human beings. Okay. You will never meet
more well adjusted, kind giving humans than the Fertita family.

(26:28):
They're one of the greatest families on planet Earth. And
they've done a lot of things for a lot of people,
and they've made a lot of people wealthy.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Right, so you pick up the phone you called him,
says man, check this out. I think the UFC might
be in trouble. I think they might be going barely up.
I think we'd be able to get them for a
good price. And I think this is something we could
really really did you know you could turn it into
what it eventually became.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Listen, we all believed, you know, me, Frank and Lorenzo
believed there were three guys that truly believed in this
business and it was us. And yes, I mean I
was just telling you when we started talking that every
day after school there would be a fight at the
park and the whole school would show up for the
fight after school. And I had this philosophy that no

(27:16):
matter what color you are, what country you come from,
or what language you speak, we're all human beings and
fighting is in our DNA. We get it and we
like it. Like music, It doesn't need to be explained.
I could be so many many times we'd be in
Europe and I'd be laying a bed, flipping through channels

(27:36):
and cricket would come on. Okay, I have no idea
what's going on. I don't know. I'm never gonna know,
and I don't care enough to know about cricket. Now.
I could be in another country and a fight could
come on and the commentator could be no, no, no,
no no, no, talk about I don't need to know what
he's saying. I don't care. This is a fight. I

(27:57):
understand it, I get it, and I like it, and
I'm gonna watch it in any language. Right. It just
it works everywhere. And when you find somebody, I'll give
you an example, a Connor McGregor who's from Ireland, right,
he ignites an entire country and sometimes you know, all
of Europe. When you have somebody that's a big star
like him, right, or a Manny pacchiow Yes, where everybody

(28:22):
who looks like him, talks like him and comes from
where he comes from will get behind him and follow him, Brazil,
whatever it is. And when you have multiple champions or
great fighters from these different places around the world, it
just works, man, it works, and that I always believed in.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
The two million dollars did you think the two million
dollars price for something that was about to go Billy up?
Did you think you were paying too much, or you
felt you got a good deal because you had the UFC,
you had all the branding, you had everything already in place.
You weren't going to have to put that up.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
In hindsight, yes, it was an amazing deal, but when
you really think about what we bought. We bought those
three letters and an old wood knocktagon yep. And realistically,
even those three letters hadn't been protected the way that
they should have been. He had sold off the video
game rights, all the vhs and home video rights, which

(29:21):
at the time that was the money. It was big. Exactly.
We only had, like I want to say, we had
twelve or thirteen contracts with guys at the time, so
there was a lot of work that needed to be done.
It's easy to look back now and say, oh, man,
they got the UFC for two million dollars that people
don't really understand or know what it really took and

(29:44):
all the work that had to go into turning this
thing around.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
But you had to invguate forty million dollars in debt
right on the top of the two million that you
had spent in order to and obviously we know it
is worth now. But like you said, you only had
X amount of fighters under cont so and I'm reading
that you're like, okay, you put all your own Maniples
likes bike TV to right.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
So at the time, you know, we're forty million in
debt and the only way we thought we could turn
this around was getting it on free TV. And you
have to understand when we bought this, it wasn't allowed
on pay per view. Right, porn was on paper view.
You could you could, you could buy Point, you were
not allowed to buy the UFC. Wow, So our goal

(30:30):
was to get it on free television. People thought we
were insane and it would never happen. But at the
time Reality TV was taken off, yes, and it was
sort of what we felt was our trojan horse. You're
watching you know, UFC. But the fights were taped. What
the network was really afraid of was live fights and
that's something crazy would go wrong and whatever. Well, these

(30:52):
fights were taped, so you could exactly. It was the
perfect end for us.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
But what in Congress trying to pass laws to get
it banned or outlawed or something. Yeah, they you up
against that also, if if if my memory serves me correct, So.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
What happened with the original UFC was they ran from regulation.
They tried to go to places you know where regulation
they thought couldn't touch them. And then Senator John McCain
came in and put the stamp on them, and and
and and you know, all their marketing that they did
at that time hurt them. We did the exact opposite.

(31:26):
We ran toward regulation. Lorenzo Fertito was a very respected
regulator at the time. So, yeah, our goal was to
make this a real sport. This many people want to
watch a freak show. This many people want to watch
a real sport with real athletes. So how he believed
that it could be this someday, but you never really.
Our big thing was the jiu jitsu. Yes, how are

(31:49):
you going to educate people about the jiu jitsu? Because
you know, again, you and I are are close to
the same age we came from. You know, the old
John Wayne movies where'd hit a guy, Yeah, and you
go and you'd standing back up and hit him again.
You jump on top of the guy and start beating
the shit you know that wasn't and boxing and and everything.
How do you teach people the ground game? Well, first

(32:11):
of all one of One of the key components to
that was Joe Rogan, who is the greatest you know,
the UFC always play fight guy. Ever, he's a guy
who's really educated on the sport, has actually done it,
loves and respects to sport and the athletes. And Joe
Rogan had this ability to walk you through what was
happening before it actually started to happen, you know, and

(32:35):
jiu jitsu as a sport and as a martial art
completely took off and everybody started training in it.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
So would you consider Joe Rogan to be the Howard
co Sale of the UFC one hundred?

Speaker 2 (32:45):
I mean, he's better than Howard Cosell. Howard Cosell never
actually trained in it, d it and and you know,
could speak about it with the love and passion that
Rogan does.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Did you understand what you were buying? Did you understand
that the UFC we're taking a lot of different disciplines.
We're taking karate, we're taking more tai, we're taking street fighters,
we're taking boxers, we're taking whatever the case may be.
Did you understand what you were actually buying when you
purchased the UFC.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
We did because we were in love with the sport
oka you know what I mean. This wasn't just like
if this was an investment, you probably wouldn't have done
it right. This was We loved it. We were we
were literally obsessed with it. We started taking jiu jitsu
with John Lewis and we were doing you know, three

(33:34):
four classes a week private in our offices at the time,
and we loved it. When we saw we said, man,
imagine if they did this, Imagine if they did that,
this could be big. We truly believed that it did.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
You take the jiu jitsu classes to better understand that
or to see how it would translate into UFC.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
No, we took the jiu jitsu just to do it okay,
and then once we did it, we became upset with it.
Then once John started bringing some of the other guys
in and we started to meet these guys, we're like,
this is boxing. Had the same story. I came from
the mean streets of such and such. If it wasn't
for boxing, I'd be deader in jail. That was everybody's story.

(34:16):
That wasn't the story with the UFC. To be involved
in martial arts. You grew up in a household that
had money. Martial arts is expensive to go take these classes.
And the other base for for UFC was wrestling. So
most of these kids had college educations and you know

(34:37):
they they wrestled at some college, so it was completely different.
You had Matt Hughes, who was this farm boy from
the Midwest. You had Chuck Liddell who looked like an
axe murderer but actually graduated with a degree and accounting
from cal Poly, and the list goes on and on
of all these unique individuals, uh and and and the

(34:57):
style of fighting was much more more exciting than boxing
because you could punch, kick, knee, elbow, slam to the ground,
do something on top of it one hundred percent. There's
just so many different ways to win and lose. It meane,
it was a much more exciting fighting style.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
So how did you how did you learn to negotiate
these TV deals? Because you're bringing a product that, I mean,
it went away for a little while and you you
you you know, you retooled it, and so how do
you go into a Spike TV? How do you go
into a Fox and says, Okay, this is the product
that I have and this is what I think it
should be.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Worth.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
How do you how do you do that? Dan?

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Well, think about this when you asked me about how
did you know how to manage? How did you know how?
When we bought the UFC, and I think it was
three weeks we had our first event. Me and the
Fertita brothers had never done put on in the vent ever,
you know, logistically for the live event, forget about TV
and lighting and cameras and all the shit we had

(35:53):
to learn. We had we had to dive in and
we had to figure But here's what we did know.
We knew what we wanted. We knew all the things
that we loved about boxing and all the things that
we hated about boxing, because at the end of the day,
we were fight geeks. We loved fighting, Okay, So we
knew what we wanted. Then it was just a matter
of getting in there and fine tuning. You know. Believe me,

(36:14):
I went through. There was a day we had these
guys that worked for us at the time in production
and we had a fighter who flipped out in one
of the interviews and I loved it. I said, this
is going to be incredible for this fight. We're doing
this this So I worked with the production the production
team said, no, we don't like this, we shouldn't do this.

(36:34):
I said, well, I don't give a shit what you think.
This is what we're gonna do. Okay. So we're sitting
there at the night of the fight, and I told Lorenzo,
watched this interview. The interview happens, it's not what I
told them to.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah. I literally got up from my seat, went back
and kicked the door of the truck in and went
in there and said, if you motherfuckers ever do this again,
I'll fire every one of you. So I ended up
firing that whole crew. Anyway, these are the kind of
things we went through, you know, in the early years
to build it into what it is today. But it's
all trial and error. But on the business side, you

(37:09):
know how much I learned from the Fertidas on the
business side, and not just them. I going and sitting
down and talk to their father for hours about things,
and you know, so coming through all of this was
my college right. The best way to learn is to
dive in and do it. That's how you learn this
type of stuff.

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(38:14):
the art of a deal, you have to be willing
to walk away. When do you know the right time
to walk away? And have you ever walked away from
a deal?

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I've walked away from many deals, many deals recently too.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
You know, how do you know the right time to
walk away?

Speaker 2 (38:30):
With Dana, It's just a gut, It's a gut feeling,
you know, if something's right for you, or it's not
right for you, and you don't jump at the first opportunity,
take your time, you pump the brake, should shop around
and see what's out there and what's possible. But lately,
I mean, I've talked about this this recently too. I'm

(38:51):
at a place in my life and in my career
I'm not doing anything for money anymore. I want to
be in relationships that I'm comfortable with. I want to
be in relationships with people that I'm aligned with and
that we have the same beliefs, philosophies, and whatever it
might be, especially in this culture and in this nutty
world we're living in right now.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
So everything done with Dana White is about a partnership,
is not so much about getting a check. We're in
business together.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Undred percent, one hundred percent, and we're aligned, and you're
not going to be calling this office twelve times a
fucking year bitching about shit. And you know, you know
the way that a lot of these sponsors think now
and act that because they they spend some money with you,
they can tell you how to run your business, live

(39:39):
your life, how to vote, how to do this. You ain't.
You got the wrong guy. You got the wrong guy.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
I read, well, you paid is it true? Because I
read this and I don't know. I love having people
that can answer the questions for me that you paid
FI TV to put on The Ultimate Fact you paid them.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah. So the first meeting that we had a Spike listen,
We're looking at all these different options out there. Spike
TV pops up. It's the network for men. Could there
be a better fit for us in the UFC at
the time for a reality show? So the guys came
in and they met with us, and I remember that
day they were going to a Dodger game. They could
not get out of this fucking meeting fast enough to

(40:20):
go see the Dodger game. And we pitched The Ultimate
Fighter to them and they didn't love it. So they
end up leaving that day. You know. The Fertitas and
I get back together and the Fertita say, you know
it will do. We'll put up the money for this
first season, which was ten million dollars and this will

(40:40):
be our last investment in the UFC. If this doesn't work,
we did it. Yeah, So we reach out to Spike TV.
We tell them we're going to put up the ten
million bucks. They love that idea. So we financed the
first season of The Ultimate Fighter, and The Ultimate Fighter
is a smash hit, right, and then the finale happens

(41:02):
and Forrest and Stephan Bonner put on that unbelievable fight.
The ratings go through the roof that night. I was like,
I don't care if we end up with Spike or not.
I know we got something here and we're gonna end
up somewhere. The Spike TV executives take us out into
the alley in the back of the arena. We literally
did the Next TV deal, you know, the outline for it,
on a napkin wow in the alley at the arena.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
But is it true that WWE could have asked the
deal because you've followed them on Monday Night?

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah. And I will give Spike TV and their executives
all the credit in the world for that. They literally
once we got in there, they put us behind the
w coming out of the WWE, which was a brilliant move, right,
and that that was all Spike TV. They did that.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
But how do you I'm just trying to figure out
because obviously when people see you do something, you have success.
Obviously you're gonna have competitors like, Okay, maybe we're not
going to be as big, but if we can take
fifteen percent out of the USC, how have you been
able to not only build from where you came from
but continuously grow?

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Well, we once this thing took off and started to grow.
My philosophy was always this, the old UFC and a
lot of other events that you'll see. All they really
cared about was focusing on the television product, which is
very important. But what about the live event because the

(42:32):
people who show up for the live event actually spend
more money. Most of them fly there, they have to
get hotel rooms, they buy the tickets they have.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
To they buy gear, t shirts, and eat you know,
programs goes on and on.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
I always want to make sure that the live event
is better than anything you've ever seen. And most people
will tell you when you come to a UFC live event,
it is the best sporting event you will ever see.
It's actually better than what you see on TV. And
the TV product is incredible. Right, So all I ever
focus on every day when I come to this office

(43:09):
is finding and building new up and coming talent. Okay,
putting on the best fights that we can possibly put on.
And then it's live television production and live in house production.
If I focus on those things every day, you can't
mess this up. You can't mess it up. It's impossible,
but it has to be because.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
You are a very, very energetic person, and in the
beginning this had to wear you down, that average person.
When you're having you're not having to success out the
gate that you thought you were going to have. How
are you able to remain so positive?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Nothing wears me down. Yes, things wore me down. I'd
be sitting in fucking San Diego right now.

Speaker 5 (43:51):
I'm doing god knows what because, believe me, getting gear
right now today.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Nothing wears me down. I feed off that kind of shit.
I love it. I love adversity. I love people saying
this can't be done. That's my favorite thing in life.
Tell me this can't be done, and I'm gonna show
you can't one percent.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Is it true that Joe Rogan he worked the first
twelve thirteen shows for free, Yes, to show you that.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
He could do it. No, he didn't do it the show.
I actually reached out to him. Ivory Keenan WANs used
to have a talk show when we bought the When
we bought the the UFC. They were based in New York,
so I had to fly out to New York go
through their offices myself, figure out what I was going
to ship to Vegas that we needed and throw away

(44:39):
what we didn't. So I'm They had tapes piled up
to the roof. So I'm in there with a VHS
popping all these tapes and seeing what was what. And
I pop in a tape and it's the Keenan Ivory
Wayans Show and he's got Joe Rogan, who is the
Fear Factor guy. Yes, yes, and he starts talking about
his love for MMA and it was brilliant. The interview

(45:02):
was brilliant, and I'm like, this is the guy I need.
This is the guy that could be the you know.
I didn't know how he fit in, but I was
going to figure it out. I ended up reaching out
to Rogan and he's awesome. We hit it off and
he says, wait a minute, so you're telling me that

(45:22):
I can have the best seats in the house for
every UFC event and talk about the UFC. He's like,
I'll do that for free. So Rogan comes out. He
does the first twelve events for free, we buy him
a really nice watch to say thank you whatever. Rogan
could give a shit about a watch now that we
really know Rogan. Yeah, but that's what started the relationship.

(45:44):
And yeah, it's just you know, I would do anything
Joe Rogan and we have an you know, we're tight.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Would you consider him?

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Even with fighters?

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Probably one of the two or three best investments that
the UFC made that you made.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
One hundred percent, Joe Rogan was one of the best
moves that I made early on and building this company.
There are a few key people that I that I
brought in that I believe helped get us to where
we are today, and Joe Rogan is absolutely positively one
of those people. And Joe Rogan will go down in

(46:24):
history is one of the greatest combat sports play by
play guys or color guys, whatever you want to call him.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Ever, let's talk about some of your fighters. Let's start
with Connor McGregor. Grew up obviously at one point in time,
he was getting government assystem, turns himself into the great fighter.
He's a champion in two different weight classes. He fights
Floyd makes a ton of money. And we're going to
get to this how and why you signed off on

(46:50):
that deal. Do you think Connor can ever be what
he once was having accumulated the wealth, because it's hard
and you I can appreciate, I can appreciate guys that
make millions, hundreds of million and still go and active
if they're broke. Did you think that one hundred million
changed Connor? Does he still have the desire to go

(47:13):
train and punch people in the face and get kicked
in the face like he did when he was broke.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
It's impossible for that money not to affect you, invade you,
and and you see it that that that is and
you're so dead on. One of the things that makes
Brady so incredible and and unique is that not only
not only did he every year strive to get better

(47:38):
and better, he was never one of these guys that
tried to break the bank and and and you know,
be the highest paid guy, he would actually take less
money to build a better team one hundred percent. I mean,
it's it's one of the things that now he's looked
at as the goat and that guy will continue to
print money for the rest of his life. Absolutely, and
and and to be a young guy and not let

(48:01):
his ego get in the way of being great and
chasing greatness and understanding that not one person does anything.
You need a team around you. And that is one
of the things that I will credit Connor for too.
If you ever notice, there's never been animosity or a

(48:25):
beef between UFC and Connor McGregor. Connor McGregor is brilliant
in that way too. He knows what he brought to
the table, and he knows his value and his worth,
but he also knows that the UFC is you know
what I mean, much like Brady. The thing in fighting,
the hard part about in the combat sports world is

(48:45):
once you start to make that kind of money and
you want to say, well, it never changed me, It's
impossible not to change. It's impossible to go from you know,
where you were to where you are today financially and
not be changed. But Connor is one of the very
unique few that was able to capitalize on his fame,

(49:12):
his personality and everything else outside of the octagon. And
this is all professional sports. I mean, you played at
the highest level to stay on top of your game
for many, many years. It's very hard to do, especially

(49:32):
once money becomes involved.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Well, it's hard in this sport because you can't duck
and dodge. You can't.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
He's absolutely right. You have a team around you that
where you might slack a little bit, other people can
pick up and carry you. You can't get carried in the.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Sport, right And see when I look at Connor and
you look at what he is is craft Irish whiskey,
and I think you have a beer. Now. He goes
from wearing sandals to have minx' slippers. He goes from
living in very meager house to living in an ivory tower.
And he hadn't fault. I'm looking at him last. I
mean we last fault in January twenty twenty. What what

(50:09):
do you expect when he steps back into the ring.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
He's at a place in his life and in his
career that you know he shows up every once in
a while. But when he does, it's fun.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
You know it's gonna be electric.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
People give a shit. Yah, people want to see it.
And you know you can't expect to always be, you know,
the best in the world. It's hard to do and
you got to give it. I'll give you an example.
People talk shit and say whatever they want to say,
but look at Canelo. Canelo it's still the man. Yes,
you know, he's been for a long long time, and

(50:44):
he jumps in there and he does it, and he
goes to work and it's hard to stay at that
level for a very long time. And Canelo is another guy.
I mean, what's this guy clipping forty mili a fight
something like that? You know what I mean? Not including
what he's making outside of the ring. So a very
unique few can do it.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
How much do you think, because I do think he's
a very talented and gifted fighter, but how much is
his ability to sell a fight? His gift to gap
is nothing like we've ever seen in the UFC. You
have to go back to an Ali, somebody that could talk.
They get you riled up. I gotta watch this guy fight.
Either he gonna whip somebody or I want somebody to
whip it. But I got to see it. I always

(51:25):
hate to do this, but it's it's a fact. Connor
and Ali are here. When you talk, they're equal.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
When you talk about mental warfare and the ability to
get in the guy's had and the ability to you know,
talk up a fight. He's Ali love, he really is,
and it's fun. Man. Connor Connor it's fun having Connor
in this company and in this sport in general. So

(51:54):
I don't know what you ask me.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Well, how how did has the one hundred million dollar
fight to your best?

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Guess what's not just one hundred million dollar fight? Maid.
I mean, as I've learned too, in the movie business.
He just did a movie. He's the highest paid guy
to ever walk into a movie for the first time. Uh,
you know, his liquor business. You and I hope we
can do what he did the liquor business. And the
list goes on and on and on and what this

(52:24):
kid has achieved and continues to achieve. So fighting got
him into a position where he could capitalize on all
these different things outside of fighting, and and very few
I'm trying to think of who else has been able

(52:44):
to do that. Everybody else has had to make all
their money and fighting. You know, maybe they had a
couple of things going here and there. Nobody has done
it outside of the octagon or ring at the level
that Connor McGregor has.

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(53:41):
spot me Eligibility requirements over draft limits apply out of
networks ATM with draws OTC Advanced fees may apply. Also,
terms and conditions apply. Go to online dot com disclosure
for details. Three O three UFC. It's gonna be in
the sphere right uh No.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Three oh three is Connor McGregor and National Fight Okay
Okay Sphere is in September.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Dana how do you go about choosing where fights will
take place?

Speaker 2 (54:08):
So normally what we'll do is we'll look at a
date a fight, what's available where we haven't been in
a long time. This whole Sphere thing goes back to
Tom Brady. Tom Brady called me and said, I want
to go see you two together. They're playing at the Sphere.
I said, yeah, I'm in. We go to the Sphere.
I'm sitting in the Sphere and I'm looking around at

(54:32):
how amazing this place is and the technology and everything,
and I'm like, I have to do this. I literally
when we left, I got on the phone and I
called my head of production, Craig Borsary, and I said,
you're going to YouTube next weekend, get the team together,
whoever you want to bring, and you're going to go
watch this concert we're doing the Sphere. Wow. So why

(54:54):
why would I do this to myself? Right? It's like,
this is the kind of things that I love to do.
I love to be first, I love to push the limits.
I love to do things that people don't think aren't possible.
Because everybody's like, how could you pull off a sporting
event in the sphere. It doesn't even make sense. In September.
I'm gonna show you how you do it right. So

(55:16):
we're deep into this thing now at the time. I've
been with MGM forever. Yes, well, I don't have the
right to go to the sphere. They fucked me. Okay,
they fucked me, and basically they knew that I had
this whole thing that I was doing. I just built

(55:38):
a performance institute in Mexico. Right, I'm doing Mexican Independence
Day and hats off to Al Hayman. We do the event.
MGM got fucked by boxing somehow. I don't know the
deal or how it went down, but they got fucked.

(55:59):
So I end up getting Mexican Independence Day. I go
in put on a great event. Al Hayman. I call
my guy Monday and said, make sure we got this
locked up next year too. That weekend, Al Hayman slides
in and steals the date from me. Next year, Al,

(56:20):
hat's off to you. My guy calls on Monday and
they said, yeah, we already gave it to Al Hayman.
I flipped the fuck out, flipped that. Because you do
all your fights at the MGM grade, you could be
for twenty something year. Yes, but these guys say We're sorry.
How can we fix it? I said, give me the sphere.

(56:42):
I want the sphere. I want the Sphere. So MGM
gives me the date of the sphere. Lets me go
to the Sphere to do this thing. Wow. Right, So
the way that this thing played out is crazy. This
was meant to happen. So September is going to be
First of all, I'm a big boxing fan, and I've
always been a fan of Mexican fighters. And you know,

(57:05):
some of the baddest dudes to ever walk the face
of this earth have been Mexicans. You when somebody tells
you you fight like a Mexican, it is the biggest
compliment you could ever get. You fight in the fight business, right,
And this is my love letter to Mexico, the Mexican
people and the history of combat in Mexico, and is

(57:27):
going to be done. And the greatest arena ever built
with the best technology in the world right now, as
far as arena goes. And I'm already sixteen million dollars
into this thing. This will never be done again, This
will never be replicated. Anybody who comes in after me
at the Sphere is fucked fucked telling you right now.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
So This is going to be a one off. The
UFC will never go back to the sphere.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
This is a one of one, one of one, one
and done, and it will be the greatest live sporting
event anybody has ever seen. Have you, if you're a Mexican,
you have to be there, You have to be there.
Have you?

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Have you already got a card in mind.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
We're working on it and we're tweaking it every day,
and yeah, the answer is yes.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Oh man, I could just imagine whom everybody wants to
be on that card.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Everybody should want to be on that Believe me when
I tell you everybody was all fired up about UFC
three hundred. This thing is going to be you know.
And again, if you are a Mexican and you are
on this, it's just it's it's going to be like
nothing anybody's ever seen before for a live event. I

(58:44):
had Francis Ingo to mention, in fact, when I talk
about always being first, yes, nothing has ever been done
live at the spirits broadcast right, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
You've been broadcast live out of the sphere. So everything
that I'm doing there putting on a fight right, programming
the sphere, beaming it live to the rest.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Of the world.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Right, these are all first nobody's ever done this many?
How many? What's the capacity of the spear? So twenty thousand?
So yeah, yeah, there'll be twenty thousand people in there
that day.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Wow, there's not a bad seat in the house, is it. Well,
it's different.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
It's unique to say there's not a bad seat in
the house for the fight. This isn't just a fight,
this is a live Yeah, because you gonna have any
theatrical events.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Yeah, yeah, you excited about this.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
I'm beyond excited about this.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
So had you not gon that? Obviously the YouTube were
the first to perform in there, Had you not gone,
had that thought ever crossed your mind prior to you
going to see YouTube?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
In the spirit all these things that happened, Brady calling
me and asked me if I want to go to
YouTube with him, I wouldn't have gone, and I wouldn't
I wouldn't have seen it and done it. The thing
that happened with mgm Al Hayman sliding in there and
stealing my deck, all the things that have aligned for

(01:00:06):
me to be at the sphere.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
It was meant to be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
It was meant to be. This was supposed to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Yeah, did you glassy? Thank you, Al. I appreciate that
exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
I ain't acting on him, he listen. Al is a sharp,
sharp dude. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two
is also posted and you can access it to whichever
podcast platform you just listen to part one on. Just
simply go back to Club Shashay profile and I'll see
you there.