UFC CEO Dana White does not like Jake Paul. At all. So much so that he has blasted ‘The Problem Child’ for being an ‘attention-seeking’ ‘clown’ and called his celebrity boxing career ‘a circus act’ that no one, least of all White himself, takes seriously. However, it seems the UFC boss wasn’t being completely honest if what ‘Jackass’ star and podcaster Steve-O has told Paul on his podcast is true.

According to Steve-O, who is good friends with White and has great respect for him, he once saw Dana White choose to give a UFC main event a miss to watch one of Jake Paul’s fights! This goes against everything Dana White has said about the celebrity boxers and his fights. At least at first glance, there is some more nuance to it, as we will see later.

“I was in Nashville for this fight night. It was Corey Sandhagen who fought Rob Font, and the main event was like dreadfully boring. Dana like dipped out of the arena and then after the fight. Like I was walking out, and we were like ‘Oh like let’s say what’s up to Dana.’ We go into this room and he’s just turned on you fighting Nate Diaz and I watched you fight Nate Diaz with Dana,” Steve-O said in an interview on BS w/ Jake Paul.

But it isn’t as bad as it seems for Dana White. After all, the UFC CEO wasn’t just watching Jake Paul fight a tomato can, but one of the biggest UFC stars in the world: Nate Diaz. The latter, of course, is and has been one of the biggest fan-favorite MMA fighters in the world, and was fresh off of fighting out his UFC contract in 2022 when he took a boxing match with ‘The Problem Child.’

In fact, it was because the UFC Fight Night main event fight between Cory Sandhagen and Rob Font on August 5 was so boring that the UFC CEO went out of the Arena to watch Diaz fight Paul. But that hasn’t changed the Power Slap founder’s hatred for ‘The Problem Child’. And Jake Paul thinks he knows exactly where this animosity stems from.

Jake Paul explains why Dana White hates him

Jake Paul, of course, has been a huge critic of Dana White and co. allegedly underpaying fighters, especially those on the lowest rung, who get only about $12.5k in show money. And that, ‘The Problem Child’ told Steve-O, was probably what turned Dana white, who is famously touchy about fighter pay, turn on Jake Paul and has the type of visceral hate the UFC boss has for him.

“The only thing I’ve really asked for is for the minimum fighter pay which is $12,500 to be changed to $50,000 so that if fighters who you know have to work multiple jobs, if they fight once a year even, they would still be able to live off of that. And that would only cost the UFC $20 million annually, so it seems like ‘Oh, you made $34 billion, why not just give a little bit more to the fighters, it’s only 20 million,'” Paul said.

Of course, fighter pay is one of the most common criticisms levied at the UFC, but it is important to remember that the $12.5k is only for the lowest-tier fighters, who do get a $12.5k bonus if they win their fights.

It should be emphasized that despite Jake Paul’s commendable actions of taking pay cuts to ensure fair compensation for fighters on his card, his earnings still exceed the amounts received by certain novice boxers in the sport. What are your thoughts on Dana White and Jake Paul’s feud?