Dana White is bringing the UFC to the White Home.
The information first broke courtesy of Donald Trump on July 3, who introduced throughout a speech in Iowa that the U.S. will rejoice its 250th birthday with a battle card on the residence of each U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.
“We’d been texting about all of it day, however none of us knew the president was going to say it on the occasion in Iowa,” stated White, who’s UFC CEO. “Each Fourth of July, I’m going to my home up in Maine. So I used to be on the market, and the second President Trump stated that, my cellphone began blowing up.”
White stated he’s assembly with Trump on Aug. 28 to start formally planning the occasion.
“I’m laying out all of the plans for the president,” stated White. “We’ll see what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what he desires so as to add, what he desires to subtract. And folks can doubt this all they need, but it surely’s coming. I like folks telling me that what I’m doing is unimaginable. That’s what will get me up within the morning.”
Lengthy earlier than the UFC was a extremely profitable world enterprise, White started his profession studying the basics of the battle enterprise in Boston.
“I went to go work for [boxing legend] Peter Welch in Southie,” stated White. “I instructed him I needed to study the whole lot concerning the battle enterprise. After I stated that I’d even work free of charge, his spouse thought I used to be a fed. That’s how it began.”
1 / 4 of a century in the past, not many individuals shared White’s view that combined martial arts may very well be a phenomenon, and even worthwhile. However with its new media rights deal – Paramount is spending $7.7 billion over the following seven years to develop into the unique house of the UFC in america – its future is safe. So it is just becoming that White now embarks on one other new problem: reconfiguring the sophisticated world of boxing.
Together with Saudi Arabia’s Turki Al-Sheikh, White is co-promoting the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford bout set to air on Netflix on Sept. 13. It’s a perplexing endeavor, as professional boxing isn’t identified for welcoming new competitors.
“I’m enthusiastic about it,” stated White, whose Zuffa Boxing plans to advertise 12 occasions per yr over the following 5 years. “This primary one is so enjoyable as a result of it’s such a giant battle – I preserve calling it a once-in-a-lifetime battle. I like each guys, I like this battle, and I’m so fortunate to do that.”
There are many causes to forged doubt over White’s boxing ambitions. The area is already too crowded, and it’s constructed round a mannequin that doesn’t at all times incentivize fighters to place ahead the very best battle.
However White relishes a problem. That has been a continuing for many years ever since he left his job working as a bellhop on the Boston Harbor Resort. There have been many who thought leaving Boston for Las Vegas was a ridiculous notion. That wouldn’t be the primary time White’s imaginative and prescient wasn’t embraced. In truth, it has been a standard incidence all through his profession.
But others’ opinions by no means crippled White’s confidence. Quite the opposite, it solely served to embolden it.
“The UFC, we have been the red-headed stepchild of sports activities,” stated White. “Me and [former owners] the Fertittas, after we acquired into this factor, we believed it may very well be massive in every single place all around the world. Thank God we have been proper.”
A good distance faraway from his first UFC workplace in a transformed janitor’s closet, White is now the architect of the biggest fight sports activities operation on the planet. And he believes he’s going to strike gold – once more – with Zuffa Boxing.
“After we began, not lots of people have been massive believers within the UFC,” stated White. “Boxing had been king. We needed to be larger. That appeared unimaginable. However nothing is unimaginable.”
An evening after promoting out UFC 319 in Chicago’s United Middle, the UFC is now headed to Shanghai, Paris, and Perth for 3 of its subsequent 4 occasions. White is happy to increase the UFC model throughout the globe, and he’s additionally desperate to carry an occasion again to his hometown for the primary time since 2023.
“We’ll undoubtedly be again to Boston in ’26,” stated White. “I like this metropolis, and I’ll at all times love this metropolis. I simply went to dinner with [Celtics coach Joe] Mazzulla. I’m a Celtics fan, I’m a Patriots fan, I’m a Crimson Sox fan, I’m a Bruins fan – Boston will probably be my metropolis to the day I die.”
