- I told these guys at GQ.
There isn't any question that I won't answer,
except this one.
What's up GQ?
I am UFC President Dana White
and I am going undercover on the internet.
It's "Actually Me."
Twitter.
I like Twitter.
I don't hate Twitter.
A lot of negativity on Twitter.
A lot of douche bags on Twitter but I don't hate it.
Dana White had hair?
Yes, I had hair.
[bleep] Of course I had hair at one point in time.
@danawhite how many casinos are you banned from?
It's not that I'm banned from casinos,
they just don't want me to play there.
They won't gimme the limits that I want
and they won't let me bet as much as I want
because they don't like to lose.
The Palm has kicked me out of there twice.
The Mirage, the Wynn will not let me play.
The only places that will let me play in town
are Caesar's Palace, the Bellagio and the Venetian.
All those guys take really big play.
But if you are a big player and you come into town,
you're insane not to play at Caesar's Palace.
Caesar's Palace is by far the best casino
in the world, in the world.
We never got Dana White versus Tito Ortiz.
How about Dana White versus Jake Paul?
Let's make it a Triller Fight, Zuffa Boxing co-promotion
for all the marbles.
You guys realize I'm 53 years old now, right?
When I was gonna fight Tito I was 37, I'm 53.
Come talk to me when you fucking idiots are 53 years old
and tell me if you wanna fight some 20 year old kid.
I promise you, you do not.
You are a jackass Sandhu.
McGregor and Mayweather two is supposed to happen,
can someone confirm this?
McGregor Mayweather two is not supposed to happen,
shouldn't happen, hopefully won't happen.
Dana White, if you had to cut [laughing]
if you had to cut one champion, who would you choose?
This is a dirty question.
Dirty, dirty question.
And I told these guys at GQ there isn't any question
that I won't answer, except this one.
If UFC President Dana White booked Fedor Emelianenko
versus Brock Lesnar in 2009, who would've won?
Obviously I'm very biased when answering this question
but I'm going with Brock Lesnar.
Brock wanted the fight.
I tried to make the fight.
We offered Fedor Emelianenko an ungodly amount of money
and they didn't want the fight,
I don't know what to tell you.
Why do you think people seem to talk about UFC fighter pay?
I also would like to get paid more at my job LOL.
Listen, there aren't too many things
you could talk shit about the UFC about,
if you look at what we've done with the business
in the last 22 years,
it's incredible, never been done, ever.
The things that we've done in the fight business,
you always have to have something to bitch about, I guess.
And fighters always wanna make more money.
Boxing is absolutely been destroyed because of money
and all the things that go on.
It's never gonna happen while I'm here.
Believe me, these guys get paid
what they're supposed to get paid.
They eat what they kill.
They get a percentage of the pay-per-view buys
and money is spread out amongst all the fighters.
If you don't like it,
there's a simple solution to this problem.
Go start your own MMA organization, no barrier to entry.
Knock yourself out, pay 'em whatever you wanna pay 'em,
it's been done before, how's it worked out for other guys?
Not well, mind your business.
Quora.
What the fuck is Quora?
How good of a boxer was Dana white?
Obviously not very good or I wouldn't be a promoter.
[laughing]
Would Bruce Lee at his peak
be able to contend with today's top MMA fighters?
It's such a unfair question.
I'm such a huge Bruce Lee fan.
I mean Bruce Lee in his day,
we wouldn't be where we are today without Bruce Lee.
So to try to compare him to today's fighters is ridiculous.
Can Khabib Nurmagomedov be considered
as the G.O.A.T. in the UFC?
It's so it's so hard.
Obviously he's talented enough.
You know, who knows what he could accomplish
but he retired too early.
I mean, John Jones is probably gonna fight
at heavyweight this year.
You know, whatever you think about John,
it's hard not to call him the G.O.A.T.
Believe me when I tell you I've tried to convince
Khabib to come out of retirement.
We'll see what happens over the next couple of years.
But I feel like he left in his prime.
I mean, look at what he did
to Justin Gaethjee right before he retired.
How did Dana White get involved in the UFC?
So I was involved in boxing
and myself and my partners, the Fertitta brothers
started taking jujitsu, we fell in love with it.
We became obsessed with it.
And through that, we started to meet a lot of the fighters
and I started to manage Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz,
that's really how we got involved.
TikTok.
Is Vegas still the boxing city or is it a UFC city?
I would call it the fight capital of the world.
All the big things that are going on here
as far as combat sports go, happen in Vegas
but Abu Dhabi has become a very close second.
And with what Abu Dhabi has planned for the next 10 years,
very cool.
What is your favorite UFC rivalry?
There's been so many good ones.
Cormier and Jones is right up there though,
one of my favorites.
They were both so good.
I truly believe that they
were two of the absolute best fighters in the world
when they faced each other.
Wikipedia.
White entered the boxing scene by co-promoting
Floyd Mayweather versus Conor McGregor.
In 2017, White said that he's
"Getting into boxing, 100 percent."
White says he wants to incorporate boxing
into company's portfolio of the UFC.
This is true.
And every time I start to go down the road
to get involved in boxing, I go,
have I lost my fucking mind? Am I crazy?
Why would I ever want to get involved
in this corrupt, insane, fucked up sport?
And then, you know, I jump out for a while
and then I start to think about it again.
Literally just started thinking about it a month ago,
got on the phone with a couple boxing guys,
hung up the phone and said,
"Have I lost my fucking mind again?"
Why would I want to be in business with any of these guys?
Instagram.
Will we ever get to see UFC Africa?
Absolutely positively 100%
there will be a UFC Africa.
Which fighter on the current roster
has the potential to have the same impact
on UFC as Conor McGregor?
Maybe Khamzat Chimaev?
We'll see.
What outside influences have shaped the way
you promote UFC and produce shows and cards.
Most of my influences have come from,
obviously I was a big boxing fan growing up.
I feel like I always knew what fight fans
wanted to see and didn't wanna see.
Most of my early influence were based on boxing.
Yeah, it'd be hard to say
that the WWE didn't influence me too.
Yeah, with their live events
and things that they've done, 100%
but mostly boxing.
Reddit.
What was the most satisfying victory
for you out of any UFC fight?
When Chuck Liddell knocked Tito Ortiz out,
that was my favorite, favorite moment
that has ever happened in UFC history.
De La Hoya wants to sit down with Dana White
to bury the hatchet.
I feel like De La Hoya's apology was sincere
but there's no way that he and I can ever be friends again.
You know, he and I were actually friends,
I used to go to his fights,
I used to watch his fights,
I used to promote his fights.
That guy did way too much damage
for us to ever be friends again.
I appreciate his apology, get it.
We're cool but we're never gonna be that cool.
What is the most brutal finish in UFC/MMA history?
To pick one is tough.
I mean, there's been so many recently,
Tony Ferguson versus Chandler,
the leg breaks of Anderson Silva and Chris Weideman.
Conor McGregor's leg break.
There's been a few.
[upbeat music]
YouTube.
Dana, what fighters are on your top five all time UFC list?
John Jones,
Anderson Silva
Ronda Rousey,
Conor McGregor, GSP.
There's so many other people
that should be on, Usman should be on there.
Why is Dana so concerned about pirated streams? Who cares?
I care dummy.
It's how everybody makes their money.
You're bitching about fighters not making enough money.
They get a piece of the pay-per-view.
People who steal it are stealing from us and them
and what happens to people who steal?
You get fucking smashed and you go to jail,
that's what happens to you.
And I make sure that we get ya.
Everybody was fucking laughing at me
when I was talking about this,
we caught a lot of people.
People weren't laughing when they got caught.
You had a lot of people begging me not to prosecute them.
Stealing is stealing.
I wonder what is going through Dana White's head
during these face offs?
Also what was the craziest face off?
What's going through my head
is making sure that they don't touch each other
and a big fight doesn't break out on stage.
Tough to say what would be the craziest,
Connor and Nate Diaz got pretty crazy.
There's a bunch of 'em that have gotten crazy
but the toughest ones
are when you have monster heavyweights
that if they really start freaking out
there's not much I'm gonna be able to do.
I would like to think that Cormier Jones
would've gone differently had I been there
but that was probably the worst one ever.
I mean, they're fighting in the lobby of the MGM Grand.
Yeah, that was a bad one for us.
All right, that's a wrap.
We're signing out here on the internet.
[upbeat music]