Dana White, King of MMA

which Dana faxed to me along with a note: “Mom, I can’t afford a lawyer to handle
this. What am I supposed to do now?” The logo that this attorney was claiming Dana
was stealing from Converse was the star in the three angles of the diamond. I could
not believe that anyone would claim to hold the trademark of a symbol of a star. I put
a letter together trying to sound very knowledgeable and professional about the
whole situation and sent it to the attorney at Converse, asking how they believed they
were the only ones who have the right to the use of a star. “What about the American
flag, just for starters?” I asked. I told them, by all means, take us to court. I could not
wait to see what a judge would have to say about their claim of owning the symbol of
a star. We never heard back from them.
Dana decided he wanted to put together a clothing line with t-shirts, hats,
sweatshirts, and jackets; but he had no money to get it started. Obviously, the
question of money, whether the issue is as small as selling t-shirts or as big as getting
the UFC off the ground, is always the point where people either find a way to move
forward with their plans and dreams or are forced to give up and walk away. Dana
had reached this point.
As I mentioned earlier, I had been out of work waiting for surgery. Fighting with
the insurance company over the surgery spread out over a couple of years. It was a
nightmare. I had applied for social security disability, and was denied twice before it
was finally approved on appeal. I received a check for all the back payments. More
than two years worth, this came to around $55,000.00. Unfortunately, I am a spender,
as is Dana, and so I would have never saved that kind of money in a million years.
Once again, this windfall was a nice twist of fate for Dana.
As a surprise for Dana, I purchased t-shirts, found a silkscreen printer in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had the logo put on the t-shirts. I chose six different
colored shirts and the logo looked great on all of them. I had hundreds of them made
up and then shipped them out to Dana in Las Vegas. He loved them. Eventually, I had
shorts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, baseball caps, and even leather coats made up with
the logo. They looked great and everyone wore them. Dana seemed to be well on his
way with his new enterprise in Las Vegas.