When Dana White and the Fertitta brothers acquired the UFC in 2001, the promotion was in a bad place. Losing money, still banned in many states including New York, it was considered a violent, barbaric sport. How it was looked at by the public was encapsulated by one of former Presidential candidate Senator John McCain’s remark, who once termed MMA as “human cock-fighting,” and was relegated to holding events in community centers in tier-3 cities.
Today, however, the MMA is a mainstream sport, among the top-four sports in America. And a large part of the credit goes to the tireless and relentless efforts of UFC boss Dana White and his team who have brought the sport to new heights over two decades. In a recent interview with UFC legends, White revealed the true and shocking extent of his dedication to the UFC.
Dana White moved up his son’s birth so it won’t clash with a UFC event
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Dana White appeared on episode #5 of the ‘Pound 4 Pound Podcast’ with former UFC champions Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman. During the course of the podcast, Cejudo asked the UFC CEO about the rumor he wouldn’t attend any weddings when he was building up the promotion.
White admitted it was true and revealed that he would not attend anybody’s wedding, no matter how close they were to him since he felt they took a lot of time and effort. “When I was building this business I had a blanket policy. I did not go to anybody’s f***ing wedding didn’t matter who you were or how close you were to me,” he said.
However, this sacrifice was nothing compared to what the Las Vegas resident revealed next, which blew both former champion’s minds. The UFC boss revealed that on the same day his son, Aiden was due, there was a UFC event headlined by Chuck Liddell.
Not willing to miss the event, White convinced his wife to change the timeframe of their son’s birth and get a c-section so that it doesn’t clash with his professional commitments, to the amazement of Usman and Cejudo, who were shocked at the extent of White’s dedication to the UFC and commended the UFC CEO for it.
“My son Aiden, his due date was Chuck Liddell versus somebody. I moved the date of his birth for the Chuck Liddell fight. Yeah, I said ‘that ain’t going to work, we got a big fight coming up. So my wife had a C-section… We’re going to have to we’re going to have to get him out of there early ‘cos that works for me,” he added.
While White and the UFC team has undoubtedly been an integral part of making MMA a successful sport, there is another man who has contributed perhaps more than anyone else towards the popularity of the sport and is, at the moment, not happy with Dana White and the UFC.
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White addresses Conor McGregor’s discontent with the UFC
During the course of the podcast, Henry Cejudo confronted Dana White with Conor McGregor‘s recent comments about being iced by the UFC. ‘Notorious’, out since 2021, revealed in an interview with ‘talkSPORT’ that he had not heard from the UFC in a while despite having floated multiple dates. This, he revealed had caused him to start drinking again and he was beginning to “drift-off”.
On being asked about this, White said that there was “no lack of communication” between the Irishman and the promotion and claimed that since McGregor was already busy promoting his Hollywood debut film, ‘Road House’ (which is available for streaming worldwide on Amazon Prime), he did not want to burden the Dubliner further.
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While he hinted he would talk to the former champion after his film releases (which it did on March 21), the UFC CEO implied that perhaps the amount of money McGregor had made, maybe he didn’t have it in him to grind and put in the hard work to fight again. This, however, seems to be belied by the fact that ‘Mac’ is seemingly desperate for a fight and has even expressed desire to fight twice this year alone. What do you think about Dana White’s comments?