Dana White, King of MMA

Fertitta’s purchased the UFC for two million dollars and thus began the rebirth of the
UFC, MMA, and Dana White.
During the first three years that Dana ran the UFC, the Fertittas put forty-four
million dollars into the venture. During those early years, my heart went out to Dana.
He would call me three or four nights a week, and usually at two or three o’clock in
the morning because of the time difference, and talk for an hour about what was
going on with the fighters and the UFC, especially all the problems he kept running
into. Dana was starting at sub-basement level with the UFC. I would listen to it all.
Sometimes a person just needs to unload all their problems at the end of a brutal day.
I gave him my opinion on certain things, not that he always listened to what I had to
say.
Dana had plenty of brutal days those first couple of years with the UFC. No one
wanted anything to do with the UFC at the time. All the athletic commissions refused
to sanction the UFC, and the UFC was banned from pay-per-view by most of the cable
companies. Dana put rules in place that the athletic commissions were willing to
accept, and he started with New Jersey and then moved on to his own state of
Nevada. Dana was working around the clock, literally, and the stress was nearly
overwhelming. One of his biggest problems was trying to do everything himself. Dana
just could not give up control of any little part of the business to anyone, even though
he had good people working for him. He just needed to trust that they could do their
jobs. I told him in one of our conversations that he just could not keep on like he was,
and if he was going to continue with this business, he had to let other people who
worked for him start taking over some aspects of the business. Unfortunately, control
freaks hate to hand over tasks to others, and even today Dana oversees everything
that goes on in UFC.
Dana was spending the Fertitta’s money like it was Monopoly money, and he just
could not get the UFC over the hump so they could see some return on their
investment. I remember the night Dana called to tell me that Lorenzo had said they
could not keep losing money and he was pulling the plug. My heart broke for him after
all that work and effort he had put into the business, and all the time thinking he was
so close to making it work. Fortunately for Dana and the Fertittas, the only person