Joe Rogan Gives Honest Assessment of “Maniac” Dana White’s $11.3B Success in the UFC – “If It Wasn’t for Him…”

As per the latest reports, none of the leading fight promotions come close to the UFC in terms of valuation, which now stands at a whopping $11.3 billion. Dana White’s captaincy of this massive ship is one reason for its tremendous success. His colleague and friend, Joe Rogan, could not think of a better man to run the show.

When Dana͏ White per͏suad͏ed the Fert͏itta brothers to buy a struggling promotio͏n, the UF͏C, in 2001, they never would have thought it would turn into su͏ch a be͏hemoth. White’s vision and some financial help from the brothers made it a ma͏s͏siv͏͏e ͏gold mine for them. E͏ven af͏ter ͏wo͏rk͏ing w͏ith the ͏promotion since ͏͏t͏he very s͏tart, Joe Roga͏n is still in awe of White’s p͏rogres͏sion.

Joe Rogan claims Dana White is “the perfect guy” for the UFC CEO job

There was a time when UFC was not even making enough to make ends meet. Enter Dana White, who made a bet by persuading the Fertitta brothers to purchase the promotion for a meager $2 million[they later sold his stake in the company for nearly $4 billion]. White then made the team from scratch and brought Joe Rogan over as the commentator and analyst. Initially, Rogan even worked for free for some events.

Joe Rogan in his latest JRE podcast episode #2139 praised Dana White for making UFC a globally recognized phenomenon. While having a conversation about Dana White with his guest, Aakash Singh, Rogan said, “A lot of it goes to him[Dana White]. If it wasn’t for him, it just wouldn’t be the same thing. You have to have a maniac running that organization. He’s a maniac. Oh yeah, he’s literally born for that job. Yeah, it’s perfect. He’s the perfect guy for that job.”

Fast forward to today, UFC is the biggest fighting entertainment promotion standing at a whopping $11.3 billion valuation. To put into perspective how big it is, UFC’s valuation is much more than the combined valuation of the next four promotions on the list (Matchroom Boxing:$850 million, ONE Championship: $1.3 billion, AEW: $2 billion, WWE: $6.8 billion)

The relationship that Joe Rogan and Dana White share is one of the best in the promotion. The pair have stuck with each other through thick and thin and remain fiercely loyal to each other. There was even a time when Dana White threatened the entire promotion that he would resign if Rogan left the promotion.

The time when White shocked the UFC admins

Back in 2022, Joe Rogan was heavily criticized due to some of his older ‘JRE’ podcasts where he used a racial slur while quoting someone. This gave UFC admins a reason to part ways with the million-dollar podcaster over the controversy. However, White stepped in and threatened everyone that he would leave and ditch the promotion if they ever thought of removing Rogan from the team.

“Anybody who is with me and has been with me, knows, when you’re with me, you’re with me. It’s a two-way street. It’s not a one-way street. I’m not one of these guys that is gonna roll over. It’s like going through COVID. I wasn’t laying [off] any of these people. Some of these people have been with me for 20 years. We’re gonna lay ‘em off? Uh uh,” said Dana White in a conversation with the media.

The UFC CEO in another statement added that he wouldn’t trade anything for Rogan. Their friendship has been going on for decades now and is still going strong. What’s your take on these comments from Dana White and Joe Rogan? Let us know in the comments below.