Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck | Lex Fridman Podcast #421

Lex Fridman Podcast
25 Mar 202490:20

Summary

TLDRIn this engaging podcast, Lex Fridman interviews Dana White, the president of the UFC, who shares his journey from watching his first fight at his grandmother's house to revolutionizing the sport and business of fighting. White discusses the power of resilience and passion, his relationship with influential figures like Trump and Elon Musk, and the universal love for fighting across the world. He also reflects on the importance of facing challenges head-on and his commitment to the UFC, driven by a deep love for the sport rather than financial gain.

Takeaways

  • 🥊 Dana White's passion for fighting and martial arts began at a young age, inspired by watching Muhammad Ali's fights and the energy of his family.
  • 🎙️ As the president of the UFC, Dana White revolutionized the sport and business of fighting, drawing inspiration from both his love for boxing and his desire to improve upon its presentation.
  • 🏆 Muhammad Ali is considered by White as the greatest of all time, not just as a fighter, but as a human being who made significant cultural and social impacts.
  • 💭 White's vision for the UFC included taking elements he loved from boxing and improving upon aspects he disliked, focusing on creating an engaging and respectful presentation.
  • 🗣️ Commentary in boxing and UFC is a point of contention for White, who prefers commentators like Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier because of their genuine respect and experience in the sport.
  • 🤼‍♂️ White's appreciation for the art and science of grappling became apparent after witnessing the dominance of Royce Gracie in the early UFC events, changing his perspective on fighting.
  • 🌐 The popularity and influence of fighting extend to powerful global figures, including political leaders and business magnates, showing its universal appeal.
  • 🥂 Trump's friendship and support for White and the UFC have been significant, with the former president showing a keen interest in the sport.
  • 🎥 The impact of movies like 'Vision Quest' and 'Casino' on White's life highlights the inspirational role of cinema in shaping one's outlook and aspirations.
  • 💪 White's approach to life and business is characterized by resilience, a love for challenge, and a belief in the power of hard work and persistence.

Q & A

  • How did Dana White's early experiences with boxing influence his approach to the UFC?

    -Dana White's early experiences with boxing, such as watching Ali fights and being disappointed with Hagler-Leonard, instilled in him a love for the sport. However, his dissatisfaction with certain aspects, like the commentary, led him to incorporate what he loved about boxing and avoid what he didn't in the UFC.

  • What was Dana White's first encounter with mixed martial arts and how did it evolve into a passion?

    -Dana White's first encounter with mixed martial arts was watching UFC 1 with friends. Initially skeptical, he found it exciting and fun. However, his true passion for the sport began after starting jiu-jitsu training with John Lewis, which opened his eyes to the art and skill involved in ground fighting.

  • How did the early days of the UFC differ from traditional boxing in terms of production and presentation?

    -In the early days of the UFC, the production and presentation were significantly different from traditional boxing. Dana White and his team focused on creating an environment that respected the athletes and the sport, with commentary from experienced fighters, unlike the paid talking heads in boxing.

  • What challenges did Dana White face when he and the Fertitta brothers first took over the UFC?

    -When Dana White and the Fertitta brothers first took over the UFC, they faced numerous challenges including financial struggles, a stigma attached to the sport, dealing with corrupt individuals, and transforming public perception of the fighters from despicable to respectable athletes.

  • How has the UFC evolved martial arts and combat sports over the last 30 years?

    -The UFC has significantly evolved martial arts and combat sports over the last 30 years by accelerating the innovation and development of fighting techniques. The organization has seen an incredible growth in the understanding and application of various martial arts, leading to a faster evolution than in the previous 300 years.

  • What was Dana White's reaction to the initial reception and success of the first UFC event?

    -Dana White was initially skeptical about the first UFC event, expecting it to be a disaster. However, after watching it with friends and finding it exciting, his perspective changed, and he later became involved in the organization, leading to a revolution in the sport.

  • How did the UFC handle the commentary compared to traditional boxing?

    -The UFC significantly improved the commentary by hiring individuals who had actual experience in fighting, like Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier, rather than individuals with no fighting experience, which was a common practice in traditional boxing.

  • What was the significance of the fight between Khabib and Conor McGregor, and how did it reflect on the global obsession with fighting?

    -The fight between Khabib and Conor McGregor was significant as it showcased the global obsession with fighting. World leaders and influential figures like Putin, Trump, and business magnates like Elon Musk and Zuckerberg were all keenly interested in the outcome, highlighting the sport's widespread appeal and influence.

  • What does Dana White believe is the secret to the UFC's success?

    -Dana White believes that the secret to the UFC's success is a combination of passion and consistency. He emphasizes the importance of loving what you do, getting up every day, and working hard, which he has done since the organization's inception.

  • How did the UFC change public perception about its fighters?

    -The UFC changed public perception by showing that its fighters are not despicable or disgusting, but rather educated and dedicated athletes with interesting backstories. This shift was achieved by promoting the fighters' true personalities and human stories, rather than perpetuating negative stereotypes.

  • What was Dana White's strategy for dealing with challenges and negativity in the early days of the UFC?

    -Dana White's strategy for dealing with challenges and negativity was to remain consistent and persistent. He focused on building a good team and executing a clear vision, despite facing opposition, budget constraints, and even threats.

Outlines

00:00

🥊 The Allure of Fighting and the UFC's Rise to Fame

Dana White discusses the universal fascination with fighting, noting that powerful figures like Putin, Trump, and Elon Musk are all fans. He attributes this to the raw human emotion and excitement that a fight generates. White shares his personal journey with the UFC, from its humble beginnings to a global phenomenon, and his experiences with legendary fighters like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. He emphasizes the impact of commentary on the viewer's experience and his decision to hire knowledgeable commentators like Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier.

05:03

🎥 Behind the Scenes with Dana White and the UFC

Dana White shares his dissatisfaction with the commentary in traditional boxing, which led to the unique and respectful commentary style in UFC. He talks about his initial skepticism towards no-rules fighting and his eventual appreciation for the skill and technique involved in UFC. White also discusses his personal experiences with fighters, including his time training with John Lewis and his realization of the power and control possible in grappling arts. He emphasizes the importance of storytelling in the UFC and the role it plays in building the sport.

10:05

🤼‍♂️ The Evolution of Martial Arts and the Birth of the UFC

Dana White reflects on the rapid evolution of martial arts and combat sports in the past few decades, particularly within the UFC. He recounts his first experiences with jujitsu and the transformative impact it had on his understanding of the sport. White also discusses the early days of the UFC, the challenges he faced, and the strategies he employed to overcome them. He highlights the importance of passion and consistency in achieving success and shares his vision for the future of the UFC.

15:05

🏆 Building a Legacy: Dana White's Vision for the UFC

Dana White talks about the importance of loyalty and teamwork in building the UFC into the successful organization it is today. He shares his philosophy on leadership and the value of surrounding oneself with talented individuals who share a common vision. White also discusses the significance of the UFC's growth on a global scale and its impact on the broader world of combat sports. He touches on the challenges and triumphs of managing the UFC and his commitment to the sport.

20:08

🥇 The Making of Legends: Dana White on Great Fights and Fighter Mentality

Dana White delves into the mindset of fighters and the qualities that make a legend. He uses the example of Dustin Poirier's fight against Saint Preux to illustrate how facing tough odds can lead to legendary fights. White discusses the importance of fighters embracing challenging matchups and the impact such fights have on their careers and legacies. He also talks about the role of the UFC in providing a platform for fighters to showcase their skills and achieve greatness.

25:08

🌍 Global Impact and the Power of the UFC Brand

Dana White reflects on the global impact of the UFC and how it has captured the attention of powerful figures around the world. He shares anecdotes about interactions with influential people, including presidents and business magnates, who are avid fans of the sport. White also discusses the role of the UFC in promoting the sport of mixed martial arts and its influence on popular culture. He emphasizes the importance of storytelling in the UFC's success and the organization's commitment to delivering exciting and meaningful fights.

30:10

💼 Business and Betting: Dana White's Perspectives

Dana White talks about his passion for gambling and how it relates to his approach in business and the UFC. He shares personal stories of significant wins and losses, highlighting the importance of managing risks and maintaining a healthy perspective on gambling. White also discusses the importance of resilience and the ability to bounce back from losses, both in gambling and in life. He emphasizes the need to embrace challenges and thrive in chaotic situations.

35:10

🎬 Movie Magic and Life Lessons from 'Vision Quest'

Dana White shares the profound impact the movie 'Vision Quest' had on his life, drawing parallels between the protagonist's journey and his own experiences in the UFC. He discusses the themes of perseverance, chasing greatness, and the importance of seizing the moment. White also talks about other influential movies like 'Casino' and 'Forrest Gump,' and how they've shaped his outlook on life and business. He emphasizes the value of hard work, determination, and maintaining a positive attitude in the face of adversity.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali, also known as 'The Greatest,' was a legendary professional boxer and cultural icon. In the video, he is referenced as an example of a powerful human being who was not only a great athlete but also a figure who stood up for his beliefs and challenged societal norms. His quote at the end emphasizes the idea of overcoming perceived impossibilities through determination and courage.

💡UFC

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in the United States. It is the largest and most prestigious MMA organization in the world. In the video, Dana White shares his journey of transforming the UFC into a global phenomenon, emphasizing the art, science, and business aspects of fighting.

💡Commentary

Commentary in the context of the video refers to the real-time analysis and discussion provided by commentators during a sports event, in this case, UFC fights. It is a crucial part of the viewing experience, as it adds depth and insight to the action. Dana White expresses his dislike for certain commentators in boxing, which influenced his approach to commentary in the UFC.

💡Grappling

Grappling is a type of martial arts and combat sport that focuses on ground fighting, submissions, and takedowns. In the video, grappling is discussed as a significant aspect of MMA and the UFC, having a major influence on the sport's evolution and the strategies employed by fighters.

💡Innovation

Innovation in the context of the video refers to the introduction of new ideas, methods, or products that significantly improve the existing state of affairs. The UFC, under Dana White's leadership, has been a platform for innovation in the world of combat sports, introducing changes in rules, event production, and fighter promotion.

💡Loyalty

Loyalty in the video signifies a strong sense of allegiance, trust, and commitment to a person, group, or cause. Dana White emphasizes the importance of loyalty in his relationships with business partners, fighters, and commentators like Joe Rogan, who have stood by the UFC through thick and thin.

💡Underdog

An underdog in sports and combat refers to a person or team that is expected to lose to their opponent, often due to perceived inferior skills or abilities. The video discusses the concept of underdogs in the context of UFC fights, where they often have the opportunity to prove doubters wrong and create legendary moments.

💡Gambling

Gambling is the act of wagering money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome, with the primary intent of winning additional money or material goods. In the video, Dana White's personal experiences with gambling are shared, highlighting the highs and lows, the psychology behind it, and how it relates to his approach to life and business.

💡Vision Quest

Vision Quest is a 1985 sports drama film that tells the story of a young wrestler striving to achieve his dreams. The film is significant in the video because it greatly influenced Dana White's approach to life, instilling in him the importance of determination, resilience, and the pursuit of greatness despite the odds.

💡Human Nature

Human nature refers to the inherent characteristics and behaviors that are typically shared by all humans and are considered to be universally present in all societies. In the context of the video, it relates to the universal love for fighting and competition, which Dana White believes is ingrained in our DNA.

Highlights

Dana White's early fascination with fighting, sparked by watching an Ali fight at his grandmother's house, and the energy and buzz it created.

Dana's admiration for Muhammad Ali not just as a fighter, but as a human being who was impactful, powerful, and courageous during a dangerous time.

The influence of Larry Merchant and the HBO commentary style on Dana's dislike for certain aspects of traditional boxing, and how this shaped his approach to UFC commentary.

Dana's transformative experience with jujitsu, describing it as an eye-opening, mind-blowing moment that led to his love for the sport.

The stigma and misconceptions surrounding UFC fighters, which Dana and the Fertitta brothers aimed to change through their promotion of the sport.

The acquisition of the UFC for 2 million dollars and the beginning of Dana White's journey in reshaping the organization and sport of mixed martial arts.

The challenges and battles Dana faced in the early days of building the UFC, including dealing with corruption and threats within the fighting industry.

Dana's leadership philosophy centered around passion, consistency, and the importance of being deeply involved in every aspect of the business.

The significance of Joe Rogan's role in the UFC, his loyalty, and his impact on the sport through his commentary and podcast.

The dynamic between Dana and Lorenzo Fertitta, highlighting their complementary personalities and effective partnership in growing the UFC.

Dana's perspective on what makes a legend in fighting, emphasizing the importance of challenging matchups and the ability to overcome adversity.

The cultural and global impact of the UFC and its ability to attract and engage the world's most powerful and influential figures.

Dana's friendship with Donald Trump, their shared love for fighting, and Trump's support during the early struggles of the UFC.

The potential of a fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and Dana's involvement in attempting to make it happen.

Dana's thoughts on Mike Tyson's return to fighting, his concerns, and the allure of the fight game for legendary figures.

The importance of heart and determination in fighters, as illustrated by the iconic Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonner fight on 'The Ultimate Fighter'.

Dana's personal philosophy on life, embracing challenges, and his love for the city of Las Vegas.

The impact of the movie 'Vision Quest' on Dana's life, shaping his views on pursuing greatness and overcoming obstacles.

Dana's approach to gambling, his significant wins and losses, and the lessons he's learned from these experiences.

Transcripts

00:00

- Khabib beat Conor, Putin was on FaceTime

00:03

before he even made it to the locker room.

00:06

Trump, sitting president, ex-president,

00:09

watching all the fights,

00:10

calling, wants to talk about the fights.

00:13

Valentina Shevchenko, every time she goes home,

00:15

she meets with the president of the country.

00:17

The list goes on and on and on.

00:18

The most powerful, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg.

00:22

I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

00:24

The most powerful people in the world

00:26

are all obsessed with fighting.

00:30

- The following is a conversation with Dana White,

00:33

the president of the UFC,

00:35

a mixed martial arts organization

00:37

that revolutionized the art, the sport,

00:40

and the business of fighting.

00:41

And Dana is truly the mastermind behind the UFC.

00:47

This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast."

00:49

To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:51

in the description.

00:52

And now, dear friends, here's Dana White.

00:57

Do you remember when you saw your first fight?

01:00

- I think so.

01:01

I remember being at my grandmother's house,

01:04

and I think it was an Ali fight,

01:06

and all my uncles were going crazy during the fight,

01:08

and there was just this buzz and this energy in the house

01:11

that I liked at a very young age,

01:14

and I'm pretty sure that was my first fight.

01:17

- Ali was something special.

01:18

- Yeah, incredible.

01:19

I mean, when you look around,

01:22

not just here in the office, but at my house,

01:26

Ali and Tyson are everywhere.

01:27

- Would you put Ali as the greatest of all time, boxing?

01:30

- Well, I would put Ali as the greatest

01:32

of all time human being.

01:35

I mean, when you,

01:38

it's easy as a fight fan to focus on him as a fighter,

01:43

but when you focus on him as a human,

01:46

and you think about what he meant at that time and place,

01:50

the things he said, the poems he came up with,

01:53

you know, just the overall brilliance of Muhammad Ali,

02:00

the guts, the guts to have the strength mentally,

02:04

physically, and emotionally to go against the grain

02:07

at the time that he did it.

02:08

It was a very dangerous time for him to be who he was.

02:13

Yet, because of how smart he was,

02:15

and because of his personality,

02:17

and how if you sat down with him,

02:19

you could be the biggest racist on the planet.

02:23

It's hard to get in a room with Ali and not like Ali.

02:26

- Yeah, he's all love, humor, all of it.

02:29

- 100%.

02:30

- And had the guts in the ring,

02:31

and the guts to take a stand.

02:34

- 100%. - When it was hard.

02:35

- He might be one of the all time greatest humans.

02:39

You know what I mean?

02:40

Just an impactful, powerful human being

02:45

who happened to be a great boxer.

02:47

- And sometimes the right moment

02:49

meets the great human being, that's important.

02:52

- I agree with you.

02:52

And he was the right guy in the right place

02:55

at the right time.

02:56

And he's also a guy who used his platform

03:01

for all the right things.

03:02

- So that might've been your first fight,

03:04

but when did you fall in love with fighting?

03:08

The art of it, the science of it?

03:09

- Yeah, I would say I really fell in love with it.

03:12

So I was a senior.

03:14

It was 1987, and Hagler-Leonard happened.

03:19

And I watched that fight, and I taped it.

03:24

And I watched that fight like a million times.

03:26

I was a huge, huge Hagler fan.

03:29

And I like Sugar Ray Leonard too,

03:32

but I was a huge Hagler fan.

03:34

And I just remember, I watched that fight a million times

03:38

because I was pissed off,

03:41

and I felt like Hagler got robbed in the fight.

03:43

You know what I mean?

03:44

But that was really what made me start

03:47

to love the sport of boxing.

03:49

- The battle of it, like- - Yeah, I was 17.

03:53

And then after that, USA's Tuesday Night Fights

03:58

came out on television, it was on every Tuesday night,

04:01

religiously, never missed Tuesday Night Fights.

04:04

I was there, watched all those fights.

04:06

And a lot of the things you see in the UFC,

04:12

not necessarily just the production,

04:16

but I would say the feel and the style

04:22

and all those things are all things that I,

04:27

things that I loved about boxing

04:28

and things that I hated about boxing,

04:29

right down to the commentary.

04:31

- You loved and hated? - Hated, yeah.

04:35

- [Lex] Hated the commentary.

04:36

- Certain things that I loved about boxing,

04:38

I incorporated into the UFC.

04:40

Things that I hated about boxing,

04:43

I made sure that the UFC stayed far away from.

04:46

I think, I can't stand Larry Merchant.

04:48

Can't stand Larry Merchant.

04:49

And I used to watch HBO Boxing and mute the commentary

04:54

so that I didn't have to listen to them.

04:56

Lampley too, you would spend this money for the pay-per-view

05:03

to watch these people that you idolized,

05:05

to hear these idiots rip 'em apart

05:07

while the fight was happening.

05:09

- Oh, they were criticizing. - Yeah, 100%.

05:13

- I've gotten used to the UFC,

05:14

so I don't, I'm trying to remember looking back.

05:16

- It was bad. - It was bad?

05:18

- It was really bad.

05:20

- But the sweet science, the art of boxing

05:23

was beautiful still.

05:24

Like the stories they told. - 100%.

05:25

I wanna do this with you right now.

05:27

Hey, will you bring your cell phone over here

05:29

and pull up YouTube?

05:31

I wanna do this for you so that you can understand this

05:34

and understand where I was coming from.

05:36

- For the commentary. - Yeah, at this point in time.

05:39

- I have all good memories.

05:40

You're gonna ruin it for me.

05:41

- Yeah, no, there are nothing but great memories

05:43

about boxing, but the presentation and a lot of the things,

05:48

but it's how fucking weird is it

05:50

that I even cared about this shit at that point in my life,

05:52

and that time in my life?

05:53

Like what impact could I possibly have on it?

05:57

So think about Tyson and how much everybody loved Tyson

06:00

at the time, and listen to this, listen to this entrance.

06:04

- [Announcer] Of the former undisputed heavyweight champion,

06:07

and here he comes, Mike Tyson.

06:09

As he heads toward the same ring,

06:11

he made his disgraceful exit in June of '96.

06:14

- Wow.

06:15

One of the baddest motherfucking walk-ins of all time,

06:17

by the way.

06:18

So what this guy should be doing,

06:21

and this is one of the Albert brothers.

06:24

Shut the fuck up.

06:25

Stay out of the way.

06:28

- [Lex] Maybe build him up.

06:30

- Or that, or don't say anything.

06:32

Just let the fans, that's why we blocked him.

06:36

That's why we paid our money.

06:38

- You don't need to say anything.

06:40

- [Announcer] Scary, imposing music.

06:46

Will he be able to intimidate his opponent tonight?

06:50

Will it even matter?

06:52

I really thought there'd be more of an explosion

06:55

by the crowd here, but very mixed.

07:01

Even with a win tonight, no matter how one started,

07:04

he will still have his detractors.

07:07

Following the two fights with Holyfield,

07:10

his stock plummeted, the pundits came down hard,

07:13

feeling they were duped.

07:14

That is knockouts for over second-rate fighters.

07:18

Now the crowd erupts more as he gets into the ring.

07:23

But it's certainly nothing overwhelming.

07:27

- What a dick.

07:28

You're right.

07:30

I don't remember that.

07:31

You're right.

07:32

- Imagine, you paid your money to watch Mike Tyson,

07:38

and you gotta listen to these fucking jerk-offs

07:41

talk shit about him the whole way to the.

07:43

First of all, one of the coolest walk-ins ever.

07:45

You know, first time anybody had heard DMX.

07:49

- Yeah, that's right.

07:51

- He's walking into some scary, imposing music.

07:53

Will it even matter?

07:55

You know, it's just all that kind of stuff.

07:57

I literally used to analyze every ounce of the production

08:03

that would happen on television.

08:05

And at a time when I didn't even know why I was doing it,

08:09

but- - But it's in there somewhere.

08:11

Like you were thinking about it.

08:12

- Right?

08:13

So yeah, I hated HBO commentary.

08:16

I thought, you know, at the time,

08:18

HBO boxing was obviously the gold standard for, you know,

08:22

but when you really think about boxing

08:24

at that time, their production,

08:26

the only thing that changed over 30 years was like HD.

08:29

I mean, even the commentators were the same for 30 years.

08:31

And then you had the time when Larry Merchant gets up

08:35

and literally starts fighting with Floyd Mayweather

08:38

during the interview and says,

08:40

"If I was 30 years younger, I'd kick your ass right now."

08:43

- Oh yeah, I remember that, yeah.

08:44

- I mean, these are the interviews

08:45

that we have to listen to

08:47

when we're trying to watch a boxing match.

08:49

- The level of boxing was good.

08:50

- Think about a fighter.

08:52

Fighter has been gone for months,

08:56

away from their families and away from everything,

08:58

training, cutting weight, sparring.

09:01

Then they go in and they have to fight that night

09:03

and then you have to, you know,

09:04

if you watch your fight back,

09:06

you gotta listen to this bullshit from these guys

09:08

and then you get interviewed and your interview is this.

09:12

It's just-

09:13

- And it's not just about the pay-per-view money.

09:15

It's about like, these are legends of humanity.

09:18

Like we should celebrate the highest form

09:20

of like accomplishment.

09:21

'Cause these are like Mike Tyson.

09:23

- So you know who goes in there and interviews fighters?

09:26

Joe Rogan.

09:28

Who has trained and done everything

09:31

and has the utmost respect for the sport and the athletes.

09:36

Or you got like Daniel Cormier,

09:38

who was a former world champion himself

09:40

and has actually been through it, done it, knows.

09:42

And those are the type of people that we put in the booth,

09:44

people that are actually experienced in it.

09:48

Not these people who've never been in a fight

09:50

in their fucking life.

09:52

- Yeah, but they're also both

09:53

DC and Rogan are like big kids.

09:56

They love it, they really love it.

09:58

- Well, everybody does.

09:59

I mean, if you look at, it's the difference

10:01

between our commentary and what I feel their commentary was.

10:04

We don't hire paid talking heads.

10:06

We hire people that have actually been in it,

10:09

done it, love it and are super passionate about the sport.

10:15

And I would say that none of them

10:17

that ever covered the sport back then were.

10:21

I don't know if that was Marv Albert

10:22

or what Albert brother that was,

10:24

but he sounded like he's a fan of the sport or anyway.

10:29

You got me on this and once I get on this, I lose my mind.

10:34

- Maybe we wouldn't have a UFC

10:36

if they didn't fuck it up so bad for the Tyson.

10:39

- It would be different.

10:40

You're not wrong, you're not wrong.

10:41

It would be different.

10:42

There's no doubt about it.

10:43

All those experiences growing up being a boxing fan

10:46

helped create what the UFC is today.

10:49

- You know, it's interesting

10:50

'cause humans have been fighting for millennia

10:53

and it seems like with the UFC,

10:55

the rate of innovation is just insane.

10:58

In these last three decades,

11:00

it seems like we've discovered how to do unarmed combat

11:04

faster and better than at any time in human history.

11:09

- I agree with you 100%.

11:11

The first UFC happened in 1993.

11:15

Martial art versus martial art.

11:16

And now over the last 30 years,

11:19

martial arts has evolved faster than, you know what I mean?

11:23

And like you just said, combat sports, fighting,

11:27

whatever you wanna call it, martial arts,

11:29

it has evolved so much in 30 years,

11:33

more than the last 300 years.

11:35

- What did you think when you saw UFC 1 with Royce?

11:39

- I remember everybody talking

11:40

that this fight was gonna happen

11:41

and there was gonna be no rules and all this other stuff

11:44

and we're like, there's no way that's bullshit.

11:46

And then we ended up at some guy's house that night

11:48

in Boston and watching it and it was happening

11:51

and it was fun and it was exciting and everything else.

11:54

And then I sort of fell off after that.

11:57

The first one I watched, but I was too big of a boxing fan.

12:01

Plus once grappling started taking over

12:03

and you know, by grappling meaning the wrestling

12:06

and the jujitsu guys had just laid there,

12:09

you know, I completely lost interest.

12:11

It's funny that I'm having this conversation

12:13

with you right now because last night,

12:15

I was out last night with my friends

12:17

and we were talking about,

12:19

'cause one of my buddies who's a host here in town

12:22

just did jujitsu for the first time yesterday.

12:26

And he was like- - Did he get his ass kicked?

12:28

- Yeah, yeah, but when you first go in,

12:30

our first jujitsu lesson,

12:31

me, Lorenzo and Frank was with John Lewis.

12:35

And I remember thinking, holy shit,

12:41

I can't believe that I'm, you know, 28 years old

12:46

and this is the first time I'm experiencing this,

12:48

that another human being could do this to me on the ground.

12:51

It is such an eye-opening, mind-blowing experience

12:55

when you do it for the first time

12:57

and then you become completely addicted to it.

13:00

And we were training three, four days a week,

13:04

trying to kill each other and me and the Fertittas

13:07

and that's how we fell in love with the sport.

13:10

I think that first time that you do jujitsu,

13:13

it's like the red pill and the blue pill in The Matrix.

13:17

Do you wanna believe that this is the world that you live in

13:20

or do you wanna see what the real world looks like?

13:22

- It's just as a real red pill.

13:24

- It really is.

13:24

- You realize, holy shit,

13:26

all that shit talking I've been doing

13:28

about me being a badass, you realize you're not.

13:31

You get dominated by another human being, you realize no.

13:35

And I mean dominate.

13:36

I mean completely treat you like you're a little kid.

13:41

And then we had the opportunity to roll

13:43

with a lot of different guys at the time

13:45

because of the whatever.

13:47

And we don't have a good relationship at all

13:49

but I'll tell you this, Frank Shamrock came in one day

13:53

and Frank Shamrock had me in side control.

13:58

The pressure that this guy put on my chest made me tap.

14:03

Felt like there was a car on my chest

14:05

and with zero effort from him.

14:08

It was absolutely effortless.

14:10

And when you train with somebody that's at such a level

14:15

when you're not, it is the most humbling,

14:19

mind-blowing experience you can have especially as a man

14:23

but as a human being.

14:24

- Do you remember, just for fun,

14:26

do you remember what your go-to submission was?

14:30

- Yeah, so when we first started out and started doing it,

14:33

I had a pretty good guillotine in the beginning

14:35

so I'd catch a lot of people in guillotines and-

14:36

- So you're okay being on bottom?

14:39

So like your guard is pretty good?

14:40

- Yeah, I was okay with the bottom.

14:41

Yeah, I was okay with being on bottom.

14:42

I was comfortable there.

14:44

But you know what I never liked?

14:45

I never liked gi.

14:46

Like we started fucking around with a gi in the beginning.

14:49

That's how we started.

14:50

And then once I took the gi off,

14:52

I felt like I had no submissions

14:54

'cause I couldn't grab onto anything.

14:56

So after that, I went all no gi

14:59

and I never wanted to wear a gi.

15:01

- And it's fascinating 'cause no gi has become big now

15:03

and there's a lot of interesting people.

15:04

I got trained with Gordon Ryan

15:06

and the level there is just fascinating.

15:10

It's become like the science

15:11

and it looks like fighting now.

15:13

It looks more like fighting

15:15

as opposed to with the gi,

15:16

sometimes it doesn't quite look like fighting.

15:18

And I feel like it's transferable

15:21

to actual MMA fighting, no gi stuff.

15:24

- Or street.

15:25

- Street, yeah. - Right?

15:26

I mean, if you start off in your first year,

15:30

you're in a gi, man, you better hope

15:33

guy's got like winter jackets on or something

15:35

if something happens in the street

15:36

'cause in my opinion,

15:38

I know all the jujitsu fucking people

15:40

are gonna go crazy over this,

15:41

but in my opinion, no gi is way better than gi.

15:44

- That's why I also do judo.

15:46

So in the street scenario,

15:48

if you're comfortable on the feet

15:49

and you can clinch and you can throw,

15:53

because most of us wear clothing,

15:55

especially in Boston in the winter.

15:57

- Right, exactly.

15:57

- So if you're comfortable on the feet,

15:59

you could still do well there.

16:01

The problem with jujitsu

16:02

is most people are not comfortable on the feet,

16:04

the sport of jujitsu.

16:05

Most people kinda wanna get to the ground

16:07

as quickly as possible.

16:08

So what'd you think of Royce at that time?

16:11

Like in the early, like what,

16:12

'cause it blew a lot of people's minds

16:14

that there's like more to this puzzle.

16:17

- 100%, and the fact that you had

16:21

like these guys like Ken Shamrock

16:23

that were jacked.

16:24

And you had all these wrestlers

16:26

or the big, massive guys

16:29

that they had in the different weight classes

16:31

and this skinny little dude like Royce

16:33

was out there beating everybody.

16:35

I mean, if you look at the way the Gracies played that,

16:39

you couldn't have a better advertisement

16:40

for Gracie jujitsu at the time.

16:42

- But also like for MMA,

16:46

because there's just a lot of surprising elements.

16:49

A lot of people's prediction was wrong.

16:52

- Right. - They didn't think

16:52

the skinny guy would win

16:54

and they're like, "Oh shit, there's more to this."

16:56

- What's the real beautiful thing about jujitsu?

16:58

It's like when you talk about,

17:00

if you wanted to get your daughter into a martial art,

17:03

should I put my daughter into karate

17:04

or should I put her into this?

17:06

You put your daughter into jujitsu 100%

17:08

because it's not about size or strength,

17:11

it's about technique.

17:13

And you give your daughter a bunch of jujitsu

17:17

and a little bit of Muay Thai, you know?

17:19

- Yeah, she becomes dangerous.

17:21

- It's like the perfect combo.

17:22

- Yeah.

17:23

- 'Cause you can put your son into anything.

17:24

Your son can get in some, you know,

17:26

boys are gonna learn how to fight

17:27

and they're gonna do whatever, but girls are different.

17:29

And the other thing, I mean,

17:30

this is the biggest selling point for jujitsu for women.

17:33

I mean, when a woman, no matter how big, how small,

17:36

can put a guy to sleep in three and a half seconds.

17:39

- What's the origin story of the UFC as it is today,

17:42

as you have created it

17:44

and you and Lorenzo and Fertitta brothers built it?

17:48

- It started with John Lewis, you know,

17:51

and seeing him, Frank and I were out one night

17:53

at the Hard Rock and John Lewis was there.

17:56

And he's like, "Oh, that's that ultimate fighting guy."

17:59

And I was like, "I know him."

18:00

And Frank's like, "I've always wanted

18:02

to learn ground fighting."

18:06

And I said, "Yeah, I'm interested in it too."

18:08

So we went over, we talked to John Lewis

18:10

and we made an appointment to wrestle with him on Monday.

18:15

- And we told Lorenzo and Lorenzo came with us

18:18

and that was the beginning of the end.

18:20

We started doing jujitsu

18:23

and started to meet a lot of the fighters.

18:26

And we were like, at the time,

18:28

there was a stigma attached to the sport

18:29

that these guys were despicable, disgusting human beings,

18:33

which was the furthest thing from the truth.

18:35

These kids had all gone to college,

18:38

had college degrees, most of them,

18:39

'cause they wrestled in college.

18:41

And we started to meet some,

18:43

we loved the different stories.

18:44

You had Chuck Liddell who had this Mohawk,

18:47

looks like an ax murderer,

18:49

but graduated from Cal Poly with honors in accounting.

18:55

Then you had Matt Hughes, who was this farm boy,

18:59

literally lived on a farm.

19:00

And so there were all these cool stories

19:02

with all these good people

19:04

that weren't what people thought they were.

19:06

And Lorenzo and I always felt like there's something here.

19:10

If this thing was done the right way, this could be big.

19:15

And what was crazy was I was in a contract negotiation

19:20

with Bob Meyrowitz the old owner of the UFC,

19:23

over Tito's contract and Chuck Liddell.

19:26

They didn't even want Chuck Liddell in the UFC.

19:28

I was trying to get Chuck in the UFC

19:29

and they didn't even want him.

19:32

And we got into this contract dispute over Tito's contract

19:36

and Bob Meyrowitz said, "You know what?

19:38

"There is no more money, okay?

19:40

"I don't even know if I'll even be able

19:42

"to put on one more event."

19:43

And he flipped out.

19:45

We hung up the phone, I literally picked up the phone

19:47

and called Lorenzo and I said,

19:49

"Hey, I just got off the phone

19:50

"with Bob Meyrowitz, the owner of the UFC.

19:52

"I think they're in trouble and I think we could buy it

19:54

"and I think we should.

19:55

"You should reach out to him."

19:57

So Lorenzo called Meyrowitz and I don't know how,

20:02

I don't remember the timeline,

20:03

but within the next two months,

20:04

we ended up owning the UFC for 2 million bucks.

20:07

- And you've said that you fought a lot of battles

20:09

during that time.

20:10

- Uh-oh.

20:11

I mean, the early days of building this company

20:15

and building the sport, it was the wild, wild west, man.

20:18

It was crazy back then.

20:21

Yeah, I was literally at war every day

20:24

with all different types of people.

20:26

Plus, traditionally, there's bad people

20:29

that are involved in fighting, man.

20:31

There's lots of bad people.

20:32

And we had to sift our way through that

20:34

for the first seven, eight years.

20:36

- So in general, there's like corruption

20:38

and people kind of steal money.

20:39

They're thinking just about themselves,

20:41

not the bigger business.

20:42

- Well, let me tell you about this.

20:43

I mean, I wanna say it was the Netherlands.

20:45

I don't remember exactly where.

20:46

It could've been Amsterdam.

20:48

I mean, MMA promoters were like car bombing each other

20:52

and then the other guy shot up the other guy's house

20:55

with machine guns.

20:56

And that's the kind of shit that was going on.

20:59

I'll tell you the story.

21:02

So Affliction, do you remember Affliction?

21:04

- Yeah. - So there was a guy.

21:06

I wanna say his name was Todd Beard or something like that.

21:12

This guy used to text me every day

21:15

when they started their MMA thing,

21:17

telling me he was gonna kill me.

21:19

- [Lex] Like legitimately death threats?

21:20

- Legitimately gonna kill me.

21:22

You punk motherfucker.

21:24

I'm gonna fucking kill you.

21:26

You don't understand who I am and what I've done

21:28

and this and that.

21:29

I think this guy would get drunk or do drugs every night

21:31

or whatever his deal was.

21:32

This guy would call me, text me

21:34

and threaten my life every day.

21:35

I used to go, "Fuck you."

21:37

- You said, "Fuck you."

21:39

- Oh yeah, especially back then.

21:42

Yeah, but I mean, this is the type of shit

21:44

that went on in the early days.

21:45

This guy who was one of the owners of Affliction

21:48

was like one of the, you know, not a good human.

21:52

Let's put it that way.

21:53

- What about the business side of it?

21:55

It's tough to make money in this business.

21:57

- Yeah, we weren't making money.

21:58

So, you know, trying to build this thing, corrupt,

22:07

the guys that work for In Demand Pay-Per-View at the time

22:13

were not good dudes, you know,

22:14

and that thing was a fucking total monopoly.

22:17

God, I wish I could remember his name right now.

22:19

He used to run In Demand and he was a fucking bad guy.

22:23

Then he comes over and starts running DirecTV

22:26

who we always had a great relationship with.

22:28

He's the reason we left DirecTV and said,

22:32

"Fuck it, we'll just go streaming then."

22:34

Yeah, I don't remember his name.

22:36

I'd have to ask Lorenzo.

22:38

- So in general, just in this whole space,

22:39

there's a lot of shady people.

22:42

- Everybody you deal with is dealing

22:44

with a lot of different forces

22:46

and your hands are in a lot of different businesses,

22:51

you know, from the venue business

22:53

to the merchandise business to the video game business,

22:58

the pay-per-view business, you know,

23:00

the list goes on and on of all the different types

23:02

of the production business, of all these different,

23:06

you know, when I first started this,

23:08

we had a production team that was the production team

23:13

that was in it before we bought it.

23:16

So there was this incident with Phil Baroni

23:20

where Phil Baroni, we did an interview with him

23:22

and Baroni flips out in the interview

23:25

when they're interviewing him and goes crazy

23:28

and I thought it was awesome.

23:30

So I'm like, "We're gonna leave this in.

23:32

"We're gonna leave this interview in."

23:34

And the production guys were arguing with me.

23:36

They're like, "We can't leave this in.

23:38

"This is totally unprofessional."

23:39

And I said, "I don't give a shit.

23:41

"This is what we're doing.

23:43

"We're gonna do this and clip it like this

23:44

"and do it like that."

23:46

We're sitting in the venue that night

23:48

and I lean over to Lorenzo 'cause the fight's coming up.

23:50

I go, "Wait 'til you see this fucking interview

23:52

"with Baroni."

23:54

They didn't fucking do it.

23:57

They didn't do it.

23:58

These guys were guys that were freelance guys

24:00

that worked for Showtime at the time

24:01

or something like that. - I would say, yes.

24:03

- I literally went, got up from my fucking seat,

24:06

went back there, kicked the fucking door of the truck open

24:08

and I said, "You motherfuckers.

24:10

"You ever do that again

24:11

"and I'll fire every fucking one of you.

24:13

"Let's just put it this way."

24:13

Ended up firing every one of them anyway

24:15

and going with a whole new crew.

24:17

But these were the type of things

24:19

that early on, there's so much stuff.

24:22

I mean, I could sit here for fucking three days

24:24

and walk you through all the stuff

24:25

that used to go on back in those days.

24:28

But it was the wild, wild west, man.

24:30

- But how'd you figure out,

24:31

how'd you know how to deal with all this mess?

24:33

First of all, to fire people,

24:34

to fire people that aren't doing a good job, all of that.

24:37

Like how to be a leader, how to be-

24:38

- Well, that's the thing too.

24:39

I mean- - Business leader.

24:41

- Getting in, in the early days, there was two employees,

24:44

me and another girl that worked for me, for my company

24:48

before I started doing this.

24:50

And then we slowly started to bring people on

24:52

and you start to build a team.

24:54

Then before you know it, we had 10 people.

24:55

I mean, we used to do our Christmas parties back then too.

24:58

There'd be eight to 10 people at our Christmas party.

25:02

But a lot of it is you learn as you go.

25:06

You know what me and the Fertittas knew about production

25:08

when we bought this UFC?

25:09

We had like, I wanna say we had two or three weeks

25:11

to pull off an event.

25:13

This is what we knew about production.

25:15

- Really? - Jack shit.

25:16

So we had to dive in and we had to learn it.

25:18

We had to figure it out and we knew what we wanted.

25:21

We knew what we liked.

25:22

We knew what we were looking for.

25:26

It's just about building a good team.

25:28

And I think that's one of the things,

25:30

if you wanna talk about what I've accomplished

25:33

in the last 25 years of my life,

25:36

I've been really good at building teams.

25:39

- Already have a vision of what you want

25:40

the final thing to look like

25:41

and then build a team that can bring that to life.

25:43

- 100%.

25:44

Well, you have to have the vision.

25:47

Without the vision, there's nothing.

25:49

So that's sort of what I do.

25:53

I am the vision part of this thing.

25:56

We're gonna open a PI in Mexico.

26:00

We're gonna do this.

26:01

We're gonna do that, you know?

26:03

And then you build the team to come in and help execute.

26:09

- A lot of people that do fighting promotions fail.

26:12

You succeeded.

26:13

Again, it's the long odds.

26:16

What's the secret to your success?

26:18

If you were just looking back over the years.

26:20

- Well, the secret to success, I would say,

26:23

first of all, is passion and consistency.

26:27

You have to love what you do.

26:29

You have to get up every day.

26:31

And I get here every day at 9:30 in the morning.

26:35

When we sold in 2016,

26:39

a lot of people in the company made a lot of money

26:41

and they all took off and they retired.

26:44

Other than the Fertittas, I made the most money.

26:49

I'm still here.

26:50

I get here at 9:30 every morning.

26:52

Last night, I left here at 8:30, you know?

26:54

And I don't know how late I'm gonna be here tonight,

26:56

but I love what I do.

26:58

We get up every day and grind.

27:00

I work just as hard now as I did back then.

27:03

The difference between back then and now

27:05

is I don't have to do a bunch of the shit

27:07

that I don't really like to do, like budget meetings.

27:09

I don't like budget meetings.

27:12

I sat through enough fucking budget meetings.

27:15

Horrible budget meetings.

27:17

Horrible.

27:18

We're losing millions of dollars a year

27:21

and I'm in these budget meetings.

27:24

So I get to pick and choose what I do these days.

27:27

Back in the early days, you don't get to pick and choose.

27:30

You have to be involved in everything.

27:32

- So costs, you're just looking at costs and stuff.

27:34

- You literally go through line by line

27:39

every fucking number in the company

27:41

and where did the money go and how can we save costs?

27:44

How can we do this better?

27:45

How can we, you know, they are brutal

27:50

and they're multiple times a week and-

27:53

- Probably helps to deeply appreciate

27:54

how much this shit costs though.

27:56

- 100%, well, you have to know that.

27:57

In the early days, when you start your business,

28:00

you have these people who, when I hear them say,

28:03

you know what, I wanna work for myself.

28:08

I wanna create my own schedule and I wanna do all this.

28:11

It's just, if that's your thought process going into it,

28:15

you're never gonna be successful.

28:17

You have to pay attention to every single detail

28:19

of the business early on.

28:20

You're involved in everything.

28:22

There's no days off, there's no birthdays,

28:23

there's no fucking Christmas, there's none of that shit.

28:26

I literally moved the birth of my second son

28:28

for a Chuck Liddell fight.

28:30

We had a Chuck Liddell fight coming up

28:32

and they're like, yeah, your son's gonna be born

28:34

on this date and I'm like, yeah, that's not gonna work.

28:36

(laughing)

28:36

We're gonna have to take him earlier.

28:39

So they literally gave my wife a C-section

28:42

and took my son early.

28:44

- You're all in. - All in, yeah.

28:46

- And the fascinating thing, like you said,

28:49

you've said that you could care less about money.

28:51

You're doing this for the love of it.

28:55

- Yeah, I was doing this when I was broke

28:57

and I'm doing this now when I'm not broke.

29:00

I'm doing this because I love it

29:01

and I feel like there's so much more to do

29:04

and this is truly my passion in life.

29:08

It's like the sphere.

29:09

We're doing the sphere, why?

29:11

Why would I do the sphere?

29:12

It's gonna cost me a bunch of money.

29:15

It's really challenging.

29:18

Most people think it can't be pulled off

29:19

and you're looking at weird angles,

29:22

different things going on inside other than the fight

29:25

and all this other stuff, but yeah,

29:27

I'm doing it because it's awesome

29:30

and it's challenging and it's hard

29:31

and I think that if anybody can do it right, it's us.

29:35

So why not take that challenge?

29:37

- It's actually why I'm here.

29:38

I'm going to the sphere for the first time

29:40

'cause I'm hanging out with Darren Aronofsky

29:42

who put together the thing that's in there now

29:44

and I can't believe you're thinking of,

29:47

I don't know how you're gonna solve that puzzle.

29:48

- There's many puzzles to solve for this one.

29:51

Many puzzles.

29:52

- So how, can you speak to that?

29:54

Like what are interesting challenges

29:58

that you're encountering?

29:59

- Yeah, so there's a lot.

30:00

So you have the octagon.

30:03

And then behind it is the world's

30:04

biggest screen ever.

30:07

So what is the theme?

30:09

How do you program it?

30:10

First of all, it's super expensive to shoot

30:13

and the format for the sphere.

30:18

Angles, we were talking about today,

30:21

I just had a big meeting today

30:23

about the sphere this afternoon

30:25

and making sure that all my departments,

30:29

all the details that I want

30:32

all start to come together here in the next two weeks.

30:35

I want the creative, the commercial.

30:38

I have some goals.

30:40

I will tell people as we get closer

30:42

what I'm looking to achieve with this

30:44

other than putting on one of the greatest,

30:46

most unique sporting events of all time

30:48

and probably the greatest combat sporting event of all time.

30:54

But yeah, I mean, there's challenges.

30:56

There's a laundry list of challenges for this thing

30:58

and not to mention the fact that

31:00

it's on a Mexican Independence Day

31:03

and we're gonna weave in

31:06

the whole history of combat in Mexico.

31:09

- Yeah, nice. - Into this event.

31:12

- But the production, I mean, this is hilarious

31:14

'cause you were just talking about

31:15

knowing nothing about production so many years ago.

31:18

- And now I'm tackling the sphere.

31:19

- The hardest production- - Ever.

31:21

- And that will be live?

31:23

- It'll be live.

31:24

It'll be live on pay-per-view.

31:26

It'll be live in the arena

31:28

and it will also be in movie theaters.

31:31

- Nice.

31:31

So there'll be a, it'll be shown,

31:34

will it be shown at the sphere later too?

31:36

Like will you try to create an experience?

31:37

- ESPN's doing a doc on it. - Nice.

31:39

- The making of the sphere, yeah.

31:41

- Are you feeling good about it?

31:42

- Oh yeah, I feel incredible about it.

31:45

I can't wait, it's gonna be fun.

31:47

- I can't wait to see how you solve the puzzle.

31:49

- Thank you.

31:50

- Another guy that I feel like could care less

31:53

about the money is Joe Rogan.

31:55

How important is he to the UFC, to the rise of the UFC?

31:59

And what in general do you love about Joe?

32:02

- It's a fact, he doesn't care about money.

32:05

And he did the first 13 shows for free for us.

32:08

- Yeah. - You know what I mean?

32:09

That was at a time when we were hurting

32:10

and he's like, wait a minute,

32:12

you want me to do the commentary?

32:15

You're saying that I get to sit in the best seat

32:16

in the house and watch these fights for free?

32:18

- Yeah. - Yeah, I'm in.

32:21

So, and then obviously when we turned things around,

32:24

we made it up to Joe.

32:26

But Joe is one of the things that I loved early on about,

32:30

so I'll tell you the story.

32:31

So we buy the UFC, they're based in New York.

32:36

We're moving the corporate offices to Vegas.

32:40

So I have to fly out to New York, go into the offices

32:43

and start going through everything

32:47

and figuring out what needs to come back to Vegas

32:49

and what we can just throw away.

32:51

So they literally had a VHS machine and a TV

32:54

and there were a million tapes in this place, man.

32:57

So I didn't know what tapes were,

33:00

these definitely we have to keep or these we don't need.

33:02

So I had to sit there and go through every single tape.

33:05

And I popped in a tape and there was an interview

33:07

on the Ivory Keenen Wayans show.

33:11

The oldest Wayans brother and he had a talk show

33:13

at the time and he had Joe Rogan,

33:15

the guy from "Fear Factor" on the show.

33:19

And he was promoting "Fear Factor"

33:20

but all he would talk about was UFC.

33:22

And he was talking about how people think

33:28

that these guys in the martial arts movies are tough

33:31

and he was talking about what UFC fighters would do

33:35

to these martial arts guys

33:38

if they ever got their hands on them.

33:39

And I was like, this is exactly what I need.

33:42

A guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind

33:47

and knows the sport inside and out

33:49

but more importantly is super passionate about it

33:52

and loves it.

33:53

So when you see Joe Rogan on camera

33:56

and I was talking about the paid dock talking heads

33:58

that they had in HBO boxing that were terrible.

34:01

Joe Rogan does not come off as a paid talking head.

34:04

He comes off as a guy who loves this.

34:07

And so early on, no media would cover us.

34:12

So I had to buy my way onto radio.

34:15

So we do these radio tours.

34:18

And they would drop us in.

34:20

You'd have to get up at 3:30 in the morning

34:22

in Vegas on the West Coast.

34:24

And they, 'cause there at 6.30 in the morning

34:26

in New York and Boston and Florida

34:29

and all these other places.

34:30

So they drop you into these markets to do radio.

34:34

And the fighters were horrible at it.

34:37

Fighters getting up at 3:30 in the morning

34:39

especially leading up to a fight, never good.

34:43

They sound like they're tired.

34:45

They act like they're tired

34:46

and they definitely act like they don't wanna be on there.

34:48

And it's bad radio.

34:50

What you can't have is bad radio.

34:52

So the only two people that could pull off these radio tours

34:55

were me and Joe Rogan.

34:58

So me and Joe Rogan would alternate

35:01

doing these radio tours all over the country.

35:04

- Just talking about fighting,

35:05

talking about what this whole thing is.

35:06

Like getting people excited.

35:08

- Two guys that are really into it

35:10

and passionate about it and love it.

35:12

And it's one of the things about Rogan too.

35:15

Early on, nobody understood the ground game.

35:19

Joe Rogan would walk you through what was happening

35:23

literally before it would happen.

35:24

He would tell you the setup,

35:26

what was gonna come next and everything.

35:28

He just absolutely articulated perfectly, brilliantly

35:32

and people at home started to understand.

35:34

And the impact that Joe Rogan has had

35:38

and continues to have on this sport is immeasurable.

35:43

He's the biggest podcaster in the world.

35:45

And he is on the UFC pay-per-views 14 times a year.

35:52

And he's always talking about the sport.

35:54

It's immeasurable what this guy has done

35:58

for this company and the sport.

36:00

- Yeah, still to this day.

36:01

Like I'll have dinner with him offline.

36:02

He'll just talk fighting.

36:04

Just loves it.

36:06

Loves every aspect of it.

36:07

- Yeah, Joe Rogan is one of those guys.

36:09

I saw that early on when,

36:12

why would you go after the Fear Factor guy?

36:15

You know, to be such a key component

36:19

to not only the company, but to the sport.

36:22

I saw it in the fucking interview on Ivory Keenen Wayans.

36:28

- I value loyalty a lot.

36:30

And I remember there was a moment,

36:32

not too long ago, maybe a year ago,

36:34

when I was sitting with Joe

36:35

and he had a phone call with you.

36:37

Joe was getting canceled for something.

36:40

And they didn't want him commentating the fights.

36:44

And you on the phone offered your resignation over this.

36:51

I got teary-eyed over that.

36:53

That's such a, you're a good man, you know?

36:58

- Thank you. - That was powerful.

37:01

- Anybody who is with me, has been with me, knows.

37:06

When you're with me, you're with me.

37:07

It's a two-way street.

37:08

It's not a one-way street.

37:11

I'm not one of these guys that is gonna roll over.

37:14

And it's like going through COVID.

37:18

I wasn't laying any of these people,

37:19

some of these people have been with me for 20 years.

37:22

We're gonna lay 'em off?

37:26

This motherfucker will burn.

37:29

Burn before I would do that to my people.

37:32

It's just never, none of that type of stuff.

37:35

- Yeah. - Is ever going to happen

37:37

while I'm here.

37:39

I can't say what's gonna happen when I leave,

37:41

but when I'm here, the people who are with me

37:43

and have been with me, they know exactly what's up.

37:46

And Joe knows what's up.

37:49

And again, it's a two-way street.

37:52

Joe Rogan has been very loyal to me,

37:54

and I am very loyal to Joe Rogan.

37:57

- Lorenzo, another guy you have close friendship with.

38:01

You seem to have been extremely effective together

38:03

as business partners.

38:04

What's the magic behind that?

38:06

- Yeah. - How can you explain that?

38:07

- I love 'em.

38:08

Lorenzo and I work really well together

38:10

because we have two different personalities.

38:13

I'm the guy that always, I'm going here.

38:16

Lorenzo is always here.

38:19

You could walk in a room and say,

38:20

"Lorenzo, you just lost $10 million.

38:23

"Lorenzo, you just won $10 million."

38:26

It never changes.

38:28

And I'm a guy that goes like this.

38:30

So we almost balance each other out.

38:34

There's a lot of things that he's really fucking good at,

38:37

and there's a lot of things that I'm really fucking good at,

38:39

and they're both on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

38:41

- So that level-headed thing was useful

38:44

when the UFC was losing money,

38:45

and it was unknown whether it's gonna survive

38:49

those low points. - 100%.

38:51

What's incredible, when you think of the story of the UFC,

38:56

at the time, the casino business was cranking.

39:00

And Station Casinos was killing it.

39:03

And Stations, their money from Stations

39:06

is what was funding the UFC.

39:09

Then in the '08-'09 crash,

39:13

the UFC was killing it in '08 and '09,

39:16

and the casino businesses were hurting.

39:20

So timing on everything, the way that it all worked out,

39:24

couldn't have worked out better for them,

39:27

and obviously for all of us.

39:29

When you think about the UFC and how big it is

39:34

and how far it reaches and how many people it touches,

39:37

the Fertitta's brothers made a $2 million investment,

39:41

then put in another 44 million,

39:44

and look at how many lives that investment has changed

39:50

over the last 25 years.

39:54

It's fascinating.

39:55

- And it's also crazy, just forget the business of it,

39:58

just the effect it has on the history of humanity

40:01

in terms of this is what we do.

40:04

We're descendants of apes that fight,

40:06

and this is like the organizations

40:08

that catalyze the innovation in how we fight.

40:12

It's crazy.

40:13

It created a whole new sport.

40:15

- That people all over the world participate in now.

40:18

Literally, there isn't a place on Earth

40:20

that we can't get a fighter from now.

40:23

- You said in the UFC 299 post-fight press conference

40:28

that sometimes fighters might complain

40:31

that they get matched up on even odds,

40:34

but that's actually when legends are made.

40:37

I think you gave Dustin Poirier as an example.

40:40

Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

40:42

Like what makes a legend, what makes greatness in a fight?

40:45

- So behind the scenes,

40:48

fighters are a very paranoid bunch of people.

40:51

They're very paranoid,

40:53

and there's been this theme with fighters

40:57

where they're trying to get me beat.

41:02

We don't determine who wins and loses.

41:05

If we did, we'd be the WWE, okay?

41:09

You do.

41:11

I'm the bells and whistles guy.

41:12

I make sure that as many people

41:15

that we can possibly let know

41:16

that you're fighting on Saturday

41:17

know that you're fighting on Saturday.

41:19

Who you are, who you're going against,

41:22

and why people should give a shit.

41:24

That's what I do.

41:26

Then the night you show up,

41:28

I put on the best live event that I possibly can,

41:31

and I put on the best television show that I possibly can.

41:35

Once that door shuts, it's all up to you.

41:39

You determine whether you lose or not.

41:41

And if you get into a position where you become so paranoid

41:46

that you think that the powers that be here are against you,

41:52

and you try to steer yourself away from certain fights,

42:02

and that's one of the big things

42:04

that happens in these other organizations.

42:07

In these other organizations,

42:09

the inmates run the asylum.

42:12

So if they don't wanna fight bad enough,

42:14

these other companies don't push,

42:16

and they don't do this, and they don't.

42:17

We put on the best possible match-ups that we can make.

42:23

And in this business, you might be an older fighter,

42:28

but if you're still ranked in the top 10,

42:31

there's young guys coming for you, killers.

42:35

Young killers are coming out,

42:37

and they want your position.

42:40

So you being the veteran that you are,

42:42

have to prepare yourself to go in.

42:45

And everybody was saying,

42:48

when we made that fight with Saint Denis,

42:50

that Poirier was in big trouble.

42:54

That's awesome.

42:56

That helps build the entire thing, that Poirier.

42:59

And then Poirier goes out and does what he did that night.

43:03

That's what makes fucking legends.

43:06

- It's interesting, 'cause sometimes being the underdog

43:09

is a really good thing for the long-term story

43:11

of who you are as a fighter.

43:13

- Especially when you're a big name,

43:14

and a name that people recognize,

43:16

and a name that people know.

43:18

And they're like, oh man,

43:19

I remember Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland.

43:24

100 out of 100 people knew for a fact

43:28

that Israel was gonna win that fight.

43:30

And here comes Strickland.

43:32

And we could go on for days with this,

43:34

you know what I mean?

43:36

That is what creates legendary moments,

43:38

legendary fights, and it's what builds stars and legends.

43:41

- I mean, arguably, Conor McGregor with Jose Aldo.

43:45

- Yep.

43:46

Conor McGregor with a bunch of people in the beginning.

43:47

People said he couldn't wrestle.

43:48

People said he wouldn't be able to defend a takedown.

43:51

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

43:52

Nate Diaz against Conor McGregor.

43:54

You know what I mean?

43:56

- And Conor McGregor against Khabib.

44:00

Underdog, probably.

44:02

But if you won, there's an opportunity to win.

44:05

If you won, that's legend for me.

44:08

He's now in the conversation

44:09

with the greatest of all time without argument.

44:11

- And if you look at the way

44:12

that Khabib ran through so many people,

44:16

Conor hung in there, you know.

44:17

- Yeah, it could've been.

44:18

- Made a fight of it. - It could've been.

44:20

What do you think about that matchup?

44:22

It's one of the great matchups that you've made.

44:26

Conor McGregor versus Khabib.

44:28

- Yeah, I mean, at the time,

44:29

I was incredibly criticized for putting together the spot.

44:35

That had the scene with the bus in it.

44:40

You know how the fucking media is,

44:41

but they were saying that I was pandering

44:43

to the violence that happened.

44:46

I'm telling you a story.

44:48

Telling you a story of how we got here

44:53

and how big this fight is

44:56

and how bad the blood is between these guys.

44:59

And I mean, I think that's what we do the best job at

45:04

is telling the fucking stories of why.

45:09

We go into Monday, it's fight week.

45:12

We got a whole list of things that we do fight week.

45:16

And then you get right down to the press conference

45:18

on Thursday, the weigh-ins on Friday,

45:20

and then the fights on Saturday.

45:22

Now, my people fly back home.

45:24

They go to bed on Sunday night and it's Groundhog Day.

45:28

We wake up again on Monday and it starts all over again.

45:31

Every weekend, every Saturday for a year.

45:35

So there's lots of stories that need to be told.

45:38

There's lots of, when you think about what I compete with,

45:42

whatever takes your attention on a Saturday night

45:45

is my competitor.

45:47

- So you're always trying to build a foundation

45:49

for great stories.

45:51

And like if the fighters step up,

45:52

they step up and they can together create greatness.

45:55

- That's it, that's exactly right.

45:57

So when we are online, like when you get to the UFC,

45:59

I mean, you just saw it with MVP.

46:02

You're gonna see it with Kayla Harrison

46:03

and so many others that have come from other organizations

46:08

and they get here.

46:10

They notice immediately the difference

46:13

between fighting here and fighting wherever

46:16

they were before.

46:17

It's not even comparable to the impact it has on you

46:20

when you leave whatever organization you're with

46:22

and you come to the UFC.

46:24

And I think that it gives them a sense of,

46:28

"Holy shit, I can really."

46:30

I mean, MVP, when he came,

46:33

I mean, there were probably more people

46:35

at the press conference than any fight he'd ever fought

46:38

in Bellator, you know what I mean?

46:40

And you feel that energy and you feel the difference

46:44

of the impact of being here.

46:46

And I think it takes a lot of these guys to another level.

46:49

- Yeah, just the aura of it,

46:50

like this is where you're supposed to step up.

46:53

Yeah, it's the way people feel about TED Talks

46:55

and give lectures.

46:57

This is your moment, you get 15 minutes

46:59

and you better say some interesting shit.

47:02

And Kayla Harrison, by the way, is a badass.

47:04

I can't wait to see what happens there.

47:05

- She was walking around with this sleeveless shirt

47:07

the night of the fights and holy shit.

47:09

She is jacked, man, it's crazy.

47:12

- Two-time Olympic gold medalist.

47:14

You don't fuck with those people.

47:15

You win a medal, you're made of something special.

47:18

- So true, especially in Judo.

47:20

- Yeah, especially in American Judo

47:22

where you don't have many training partners that are great.

47:24

- That's what I'm saying.

47:26

- So you better fucking work for it.

47:27

Ridiculous question, but who's in the conversation

47:31

for the greatest of all time?

47:32

- [Dana] Jon Jones.

47:34

- So you've talked about Jon Jones,

47:35

but what are the metrics involved here?

47:38

- He's never been beat.

47:39

He destroyed everybody at light heavyweight,

47:41

which at the time was the toughest weight class

47:46

in the company, in the sport.

47:49

And then I moved up to heavyweight,

47:51

won easily at heavyweight.

47:53

And when you look at a guy

47:59

and you look at what he was doing

48:01

outside the octagon at the same time,

48:03

which shouldn't be part of it,

48:05

shouldn't be part of the equation,

48:07

but when you do, wow.

48:10

Jon Jones, there's no debate.

48:12

Nobody can debate who's the greatest of all time.

48:15

It's absolutely positively Jon Jones.

48:17

He's never lost.

48:19

He's never been beaten in the octagon ever.

48:21

- So that's one of the metrics, pure sheer dominance.

48:26

But there's others.

48:27

You could losing sometimes is a catalyst for greatness.

48:33

- I don't disagree.

48:34

But when you've never lost.

48:37

It's this, you've never lost.

48:40

We've never found somebody.

48:42

And the other thing is that you have to factor in too

48:47

is longevity.

48:49

How long he's, 'cause sometimes with a lot of these guys,

48:51

the sport passes them by.

48:53

You get younger guys that are faster,

48:55

this, that, and the sport evolves.

48:57

Nobody's been able to beat Jon Jones.

49:00

Oh, and the other thing that you measure

49:02

is when you said dominance, it's true.

49:06

If you're this guy that has unbelievable power

49:08

and you're just going in

49:08

and you're just fucking knocking everybody out

49:11

and nobody's ever pulled you into the deep water before.

49:14

That was when my opinion of Jon Jones started to change.

49:18

Gustafsson took him into the deep water.

49:20

Gustafsson hit him with some shit he'd never been hit with.

49:23

Gustafsson tested him and put Jon Jones in a place

49:27

where I bet if you sat down and interviewed Jon Jones,

49:31

going into the deep rounds of that,

49:33

Jon Jones thought he was gonna die.

49:35

You know what I'm saying?

49:36

- [Lex] He's willing to go there.

49:37

- And he kept going.

49:38

He was willing to do whatever it took to win that fight.

49:43

- And it breaks my heart because he beat DC

49:46

and DC is one of the greatest of all time.

49:48

- That's the thing too.

49:49

And I believe that DC doesn't get the credit he deserves

49:52

because of the Jon Jones thing.

49:54

When you look at DC and what he's accomplished.

49:57

And Jon Jones beat him twice.

50:00

It's undeniable.

50:02

You can hate all you want.

50:03

Jon Jones is the greatest of all time.

50:05

- Do you think Khabib was tested enough?

50:09

- I think that Khabib had the potential

50:10

to be in the running for that.

50:12

He just didn't stick around a lot.

50:14

First of all, he had injuries that, you know,

50:18

he should have been where he got a lot sooner

50:21

had he not had the injuries that he had

50:22

and the setbacks in his career, but there's no doubt.

50:26

Khabib is one of the all time greats.

50:29

- What's the good, the bad and the ugly

50:30

of your relationship with Conor?

50:33

- There's literally no ugly.

50:35

Conor McGregor has been an incredible partner to work with.

50:38

Everybody thinks that Conor,

50:39

if Conor showed up to things on time,

50:42

there wouldn't be one fucking bad thing

50:43

I could say about Conor, you know what I mean?

50:45

- [Lex] Only being late to shit.

50:46

- If you fucking said, put a gun to my fucking head, right,

50:49

and said, "Don't lie, motherfucker.

50:51

"Tell me all the bad things about Conor McGregor,"

50:54

I'd say the guy doesn't show up on time.

50:56

That's it. - That's it.

50:57

- If Conor McGregor showed up to shit on time,

50:59

and sometimes he does, sometimes he does,

51:02

he's been a great partner.

51:04

If you look at what a huge superstar he became,

51:08

the fights that he was involved in,

51:09

let me tell you what Conor McGregor never did.

51:11

He never walked in a room and said,

51:13

"Conor, this guy just fell out.

51:15

"We want you to fight this guy."

51:16

And he was like, "No way, I'm not taking this fucking risk.

51:19

"I'm at this point in my career where my money,

51:22

"my this, my that."

51:23

He was like, "Fuck it, let's do it."

51:26

You know, he'd always say, "Let's do it."

51:28

The other thing that Conor McGregor never did,

51:30

no matter how big he was or whatever it was,

51:33

when we were heading into a fight,

51:34

"Oh, Conor, this guy just fell out.

51:37

"Aldo fell out.

51:38

"We were looking for another.

51:39

"Yeah, I'll do it,

51:40

"but I'm gonna need another fucking 200,000.

51:42

"I'm gonna need another million dollars.

51:44

"Conor McGregor never did that kind of chicken shit,

51:47

"you know, bullshit kind of stuff.

51:49

"He never did any of that."

51:51

Conor was as solid a guy as you could possibly work with.

51:54

- Just fuck it, I'll do it.

51:56

- I'll do it.

51:57

Literally would, there's actually a scene,

52:00

'cause we were filming something,

52:01

I don't know if it was embedded

52:02

or what we were filming at the time.

52:03

Me and Lorenzo walk into his house

52:05

that he rented here in Vegas.

52:06

And I'm pretty sure it was when Aldo fell out.

52:08

And we're telling him this, that,

52:10

and we're looking at some options.

52:11

He says, "I'm going to the gym.

52:14

"When I'm done working out, let me know."

52:16

He just woke up out of bed, he's in his fucking underwear.

52:19

And he gets hit with this.

52:20

And he's like, "All right, I'm going to the gym.

52:23

"Let me know when I get out who I'm fighting."

52:25

Doesn't care, doesn't wanna know,

52:28

doesn't want any more money, nothing.

52:31

Fucking shows up and he delivers.

52:33

- Yeah. - Yeah.

52:35

So, you know, Conor has been incredibly successful.

52:37

He's made a lot of money and, you know,

52:40

he's had his ups and downs outside and inside the octagon.

52:44

But as for a guy who was, you know,

52:46

on the dole and was a plumber,

52:49

he's actually a really smart businessman.

52:51

And he's been one of the best partners

52:52

that I've ever had in the history of the sport.

52:55

- And an important part of the history of the UFC.

52:57

- Big.

52:58

- He opened it up to all kinds of new eyes.

53:01

- Yep.

53:01

He literally, you know, set Europe, Australia, Canada,

53:07

and many other parts of the world on fire, man.

53:10

He was our first legit megastar.

53:15

- And I personally think he doesn't get enough credit

53:18

for just how good he was as a fighter.

53:20

And people love to talk shit about Conor.

53:23

I suppose that's part of his magic.

53:25

- But it comes with success.

53:27

When you're successful,

53:28

there's always people out there that are gonna talk shit.

53:31

You know, you always have a bunch of know nothing,

53:33

do nothing fucking losers that love to talk shit.

53:37

- You think if you were to do it all over again,

53:40

Khabib is the right matchup?

53:41

- Yeah, listen, the thing that you can't do

53:44

is avoid matchups.

53:46

You know what I mean?

53:47

This is what we're talking about.

53:48

When you talk about being a legend,

53:52

Conor McGregor needed Khabib.

53:54

Khabib needed Conor McGregor.

53:57

You can hate each other as much as you want,

53:59

but you have to fight these other legendary

54:02

bad motherfuckers to yourself become a legend.

54:06

I mean, it's like Jon Jones needed Cyril Gaunt.

54:11

And Cyril Gaunt needed Jon Jones

54:13

'cause if Cyril could have beat John,

54:15

the first guy, if anybody can ever figure it out

54:17

and beat Jon Jones, it's a big deal.

54:20

And it's almost like your obligation as a fighter.

54:26

And when you think about Jon Jones became

54:29

who he is today and the reason I'm sitting here

54:31

telling you how great he is,

54:32

because all these other guys gave him the opportunity

54:35

to beat them.

54:38

Or they beat Jon.

54:39

It's all about giving these other guys the opportunity.

54:43

Saint Denis.

54:45

Poirier gave him the opportunity to come in and beat him.

54:50

That's how this all works.

54:51

- It's the two of them together, the two fighters together.

54:54

- You have to have them both.

54:55

Listen, I could line up a bunch of no-name bums

55:00

that Jon Jones could run through.

55:02

That's what they do in all the other organizations.

55:05

We would have nothing to fucking talk about right now.

55:08

- That's why luckily a perfect record in the UFC

55:10

is not as important as who you fought, how you fought.

55:15

- But when you have a perfect record in the UFC,

55:19

holy shit.

55:21

That's what you would,

55:22

when you can have a perfect record in the UFC,

55:26

you are absolutely one of the most special athletes

55:30

on planet Earth.

55:31

- You and Trump are friends.

55:34

I just talked to Ivanka last night

55:35

about her experience in the Miami event.

55:39

She loves it.

55:40

She's training too.

55:41

You were talking about getting girls to train.

55:42

She's training too.

55:43

- And the kids are training, yeah.

55:44

Her father's the biggest fucking fight fan on the planet.

55:48

Calls me all the time to talk about the fights.

55:51

And Don Jr. said that I'm like the only guy on Earth

55:55

that he bros out with.

55:58

It's funny when you talk about how powerful fighting is.

56:02

This last Miami event,

56:04

the president of Ecuador and the president of Spain

56:08

both posted about the fights.

56:13

Khabib beat Conor.

56:16

Putin was on FaceTime

56:17

before he even made it to the locker room.

56:20

Trump, sitting president, ex-president,

56:23

watching all the fights,

56:24

calling, wants to talk about the fights.

56:26

Valentina Shevchenko.

56:28

Every time she goes home,

56:29

she meets with the president of the country.

56:30

The list goes on and on and on.

56:32

The most powerful, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg.

56:36

I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

56:38

The most powerful people in the world

56:39

are all obsessed with fighting.

56:42

- When did you first discover that Trump loves fighting?

56:44

- So I first discovered that Trump was a big fight fan.

56:48

Obviously, you saw him a part of all the big,

56:51

you're talking about how big boxing fans we were.

56:53

He was a part of all the big fights back then.

56:55

But when we first bought the UFC,

56:59

this thing was so bad, venues didn't even want us.

57:01

And we ended up doing our first event

57:04

in Atlantic City at the Trump Taj Mahal.

57:07

Now think about this, at that time,

57:08

Trump brand here, UFC brand.

57:10

I mean, I can't go low enough.

57:12

And he had us at his venue, two times back to back,

57:19

showed up for the first fight of the night

57:21

and stayed till the last fight of the night.

57:23

Then after that, any good thing

57:26

that would ever happen to me in my career,

57:28

Trump would reach out.

57:29

Whether it was, we were on the front page

57:31

of the New York Times at one time,

57:32

and he said, "Congratulations, Dana.

57:35

"I always knew you guys were gonna do it."

57:37

Little things like that, but that are big things

57:40

and mean a lot, especially coming from a guy like him.

57:43

- So he saw something in you, like this is gonna be-

57:46

- 100%, he definitely saw it.

57:50

And then comes '15, '16, whenever it was, I don't remember.

57:56

But he called me and he said, "Listen,

58:00

"if you don't wanna do this, I completely understand.

58:04

"But I would be honored if you would speak

58:06

"at the National Republican Convention for me.

58:08

"And I'm not a very political guy, you know what I mean?

58:11

"And everybody told me not to do it, do not do this."

58:16

But I was like, "Why would I not do this?

58:18

"This guy's been great to me, and I did it."

58:24

And our relationship is just like, you know what I mean?

58:27

I consider Donald Trump to be one

58:29

of my very, very good friends.

58:31

- Any favorite stories?

58:33

- I mean, there's so many stories.

58:35

I mean, once he won the election, I'd be at work

58:41

and I'd be down the hall, was in the matchmaking room

58:44

or whatever, and my secretary would tell,

58:46

"The President's on the phone."

58:47

Fucking come running down the hallway and grab the phone.

58:50

And he'd wanna talk about the fight that was coming up

58:53

or the fight that happened.

58:54

Or I'd be in my car and I'd answer the phone.

58:57

It's like, "Hi, this is the White House.

59:00

"We have the President of the United States on the phone."

59:04

That's a trip when that first starts happening.

59:06

And then just to sum him up,

59:13

this is the kind of guy that,

59:16

you wanna talk about a fighter?

59:19

This is the most resilient human being I've ever met.

59:22

If you see the shit that this guy's going

59:23

through publicly every day,

59:26

and I'll call him on the phone as a friend

59:31

and be like, "Hey, you good?

59:33

"How you doing?"

59:35

Unfazed, unfazed, like nothing's going on.

59:41

And he'll start talking to me about this and that

59:42

and all this other shit.

59:44

One time, there's only been one time,

59:46

I've never talked about this publicly,

59:48

but one time I called him and he was not good.

59:54

He was a mess.

59:56

And I've never heard him like that.

59:57

And I've never seen him like that when Ivana died.

60:01

The only time I've ever seen him fucked up.

60:06

Obviously, as soon as I heard it, I reached out

60:08

and I have never.

60:11

They look at all the stuff that's gone on with Trump,

60:13

all the bad stuff that they say,

60:15

they're trying to attack him,

60:15

they're trying to ruin him, unfazed.

60:18

I called him that day and he was,

60:20

that's the first time I've ever seen that guy busted up

60:22

and not good.

60:25

- But that says something that that's the only time.

60:28

That guy is, I mean, walking through the fire.

60:30

- He does not get rattled.

60:31

He will walk through fire.

60:32

He's an absolute savage.

60:34

- You think he wins the presidential election?

60:36

- I don't know, man.

60:37

It's gonna depend on how this whole,

60:40

politics is the most dirtiest, scummiest thing

60:43

on planet Earth, man.

60:44

And who knows how this is all gonna play out.

60:46

It's all dirty, it's all ugly.

60:48

And obviously, I'm rooting for him and I'm behind him

60:53

and I hope he does, but we'll see.

60:56

- What's dirtier, the fighting game in the early days

60:59

or politics?

61:01

- There's nothing dirtier than politics.

61:03

Nothing, there's literally nothing dirtier.

61:06

It is the dirtiest thing on planet Earth.

61:08

- Just wanted to get that on record.

61:09

Another guy who doesn't seem to be fazed by the fire,

61:12

I've gotten to know him as Elon.

61:14

I have to ask you, it's a bit of fun.

61:17

You were a part of thinking about putting together

61:20

Zuck versus Elon.

61:22

I trained with both.

61:23

I did a phone call with Elon and you

61:26

when we were training on the mat.

61:29

You really think that could have been a good fight?

61:32

- It would have been the biggest fight ever done.

61:34

- The spectacle of it.

61:36

- Two of the most powerful, wealthiest men in the world.

61:42

Lots of guys talk shit and go back and forth

61:44

and sue each other and do all this.

61:46

These two guys were literally talking about

61:48

facing each other in the octagon and fighting.

61:50

There's nothing, and they're in a business

61:53

that's looked at as geeky, you know what I mean?

61:55

They're tech nerds, they're this, they're that.

61:58

These are two dudes that were willing to throw down

62:00

and fight and you know as well as I do.

62:04

There's a lot of public speculation about this.

62:06

I was taking serious real time and working on this thing.

62:09

I mean, I had projections, I had numbers.

62:12

I was looking at venues.

62:13

I was on the phone with the fucking Colosseum in Italy.

62:16

You name it, I was in it.

62:17

These guys were serious and this was something

62:19

that was really gonna happen and I'll tell you right now,

62:22

in the short amount of time that it was going down,

62:28

it was fun, I was having a blast with it.

62:30

- What do you think about Tyson?

62:33

Tyson fighting Jake Paul.

62:34

- I love Mike Tyson and I'm not a fan

62:38

of anybody fighting at our age,

62:42

but he's a grown man obviously

62:46

and he's gonna do what he's gonna do,

62:47

but at least I know, I talked to his wife a couple days ago

62:54

and he's taking it serious and he's training for it

62:56

and you know, so we'll see how it plays out.

62:59

- Why do you think he fights though?

63:01

Like what is that about, is there a broader lesson there

63:04

about fighters, about great fighters?

63:07

- I think that Mike Tyson is actually one

63:09

of those unique guys who has crossed over.

63:12

Any of these other boxers from his era,

63:15

they have no way of making money other than fighting.

63:18

Mike Tyson has made a lot of money outside of fighting.

63:21

I mean, Tyson still has that aura.

63:23

You could be at a restaurant and he walks in

63:26

and you're like, holy fuck, Mike Tyson's here.

63:28

You know, he still has that type of aura

63:31

and energy in a room and he makes lots of money

63:37

outside of the ring.

63:39

I just, I think that he ends up getting these offers

63:42

that he can't refuse.

63:44

- Oh, you think it's financial?

63:45

So how much, I mean, that's a good question to ask.

63:49

You work with a lot of fighters.

63:51

For how many of them is it about money

63:53

and for how many is it about the fact,

63:55

the pure love of fighting?

63:58

- Well, the guys that get into it for the right reason

64:01

are the guys who get into it for greatness

64:04

'cause you wanna be the fucking best.

64:08

And when you're in it for that reason, right,

64:12

you love it and you wanna be looked at as the best ever

64:16

and you have the talent, the money happens.

64:19

Then you have other guys who get in.

64:21

I believe me, I've dealt with fighters

64:22

who just wanted to be famous

64:24

and just wanted to make money.

64:25

You know what I mean?

64:26

And it's, you know, listen, it is what it is.

64:30

It's your life and you live it the way that you want

64:35

and do your thing, but the ones that are beloved

64:37

are the guys who really wanna be fucking great.

64:39

And they're the ones that are remembered.

64:41

And I mean, when you look at Tyson in his early years

64:44

when he came up under Cus D'Amato,

64:46

I mean, he was a student of the game.

64:47

He loved everything.

64:49

He became completely infatuated with the fight game.

64:53

Then he became such a massive superstar.

64:57

It's almost like the whole thing starts to turn on you.

64:59

You know, all the things that come at you at a young age

65:02

and that kind of money.

65:04

And it's tough, it's tough to navigate and get through.

65:06

And you know, you say something like that,

65:08

and people are like, oh, poor him.

65:10

He had fucking $100 million and couldn't, eh.

65:13

At that age and with all the shit that people talk

65:16

and all the things that you gotta put up with

65:17

and the fame, a lot of people deal with fame.

65:21

Some people handle it really well and some people don't.

65:24

And the perfect example of that

65:28

was Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonner.

65:31

You know, they fought that unbelievable fight

65:33

on "The Ultimate Fighter."

65:34

Everything blew up after that.

65:37

Forrest dealt with fame really well and Stephan did not.

65:42

- That was a special fight. - It really was.

65:44

- What do you think attracted people to that fight?

65:46

So that made, that was a big leap for the UFC.

65:50

- It was everything. - It was everything.

65:52

- It was everything.

65:52

- Why do you think people loved that fight?

65:54

What attracted people to that fight?

65:57

Why did they change everything?

65:58

- Well, what happened that night is that the rest

66:00

of the show was a disaster.

66:03

You know, we had the co-main event and the main event.

66:06

Diego Sanchez ran through Kenny Florian in seconds.

66:09

Oh my God, that was terrible.

66:12

And the fights that led up to that

66:13

weren't anything to talk about either.

66:16

Then Stephan and Forrest got in there

66:18

and just went toe-to-toe in this unbelievable slugfest

66:22

live on free television when cable still mattered.

66:26

And what I heard was at the time,

66:31

you know, you had people picking up the phone going,

66:33

"Are you watching this show?"

66:34

The numbers just started climbing.

66:36

Then you got a razor thin decision, who's gonna win?

66:40

You got the crowd stomping their feet.

66:43

It sounded like a train was going through the place

66:45

and everybody's chanting one more round.

66:48

Me and the Fertitta brothers get together and we talk.

66:50

We're gonna give 'em both contracts.

66:52

So we give 'em both contracts and the place erupts.

66:54

It just, it couldn't have been a more perfect fight

66:58

at the most perfect time.

67:00

And it just, it all came together.

67:03

So it's almost like this was meant to be.

67:07

You know what I mean?

67:08

So we had so many problems with Spike TV at the time.

67:12

Because halfway through the season,

67:15

the president of the company got fired.

67:18

All the things that we thought we were gonna get that year,

67:21

you know, we had this runaway hit show.

67:24

And normally at that time,

67:25

when you would see runaway hit shows,

67:27

there'd be commercials, it'd be on billboards,

67:31

it'd be on the side of buses in L.A. and New York.

67:34

Eh, we got none of that.

67:37

We didn't even know if we were gonna get a second season

67:41

coming out of that.

67:44

And when that fight was over, I swear to God,

67:47

I was like, I don't even give a fuck.

67:50

We're gonna end up somewhere now after this fight.

67:53

And we didn't even make it out of the building that night.

67:55

The Spike guys did the contract with us in the alley

67:58

on a fucking napkin after the fight.

68:00

- So you already saw the magic of the fight itself.

68:04

It captures everything. - Once that happened

68:05

and all the shit, and at that time,

68:07

I didn't know what the ratings,

68:08

it's not like we were streaming

68:09

and we could see what we were, we had no idea, but I knew.

68:12

- [Lex] You just knew this was coming.

68:13

- I knew. - What is it?

68:14

It's like just two people being willing to stand toe to toe

68:19

and just go to war.

68:21

- And when you think about what was at stake,

68:22

there was a car, remember the Kia?

68:26

The winner got a Kia.

68:28

That's what was the fucking...

68:32

And Stephan and Forrest, the will to win,

68:35

they both wanted to win that fight so bad.

68:38

- It was bigger than the Kia probably.

68:40

- You know, Forrest drove that Kia to like 200,000 miles.

68:44

The biggest mistake Kia ever made

68:46

was not doing a fucking commercial

68:48

with Forrest Griffin about that car.

68:50

Forrest Griffin loved that car so much he drove it.

68:52

I think he still has it.

68:54

It's got like 200,000 miles on it, that car.

68:56

I mean, you couldn't have a better fucking commercial

68:59

than that.

69:00

And we reached out to him too.

69:01

I said, "Kia should know about this."

69:03

They fucking blew it.

69:04

You got a bunch of, you know how those guys

69:06

are in the business world.

69:07

They don't fucking get anything.

69:09

- Maybe it was about the Kia then.

69:10

- It was about winning.

69:12

They both wanted to win The Ultimate Fighter so bad.

69:15

It's the Kia, it's the win,

69:18

it's the contract you get, the whole thing.

69:22

- But I think at that point, you even forget all of that.

69:25

When you're in there, you probably just,

69:27

there's a primal thing where like, I'm not backing down.

69:30

- They're both bad dudes.

69:32

They were both real fighters at the end of the day.

69:34

That's why the fight was so great.

69:36

- Yeah. - You know what I mean?

69:37

- Just throw all the caution to the wind and just fight.

69:41

Those are some of the greatest moments in the UFC too

69:43

when the technique is not, kind of falls apart

69:47

and you're just like-

69:49

- Because you're in those deep rounds.

69:51

You've been through a war.

69:53

Now it's all about heart and dog.

69:55

Who can dig deeper and who's got it and who wants it?

69:58

Who wants it?

69:59

I mean, we all know when that moment happens in a fight,

70:03

when you see that both of these guys are fucking exhausted.

70:06

And for people that are watching this,

70:08

people that don't know a lot of,

70:09

everybody thinks they know a lot about fighting.

70:11

99.9% of the people out there don't know fucking jack shit

70:14

about fighting or what it takes to do what these people do.

70:18

But when you get into those later rounds

70:21

and fatigue sets in,

70:22

and then fatigue makes you start to fucking doubt yourself.

70:26

And then you start to wonder,

70:28

can I even make it through the rest of this round?

70:30

And then you start to think,

70:31

am I gonna fucking die right now?

70:33

And these kids dig fucking deep.

70:36

And they just, like you said,

70:38

all the other shit flies out the window

70:40

and now they're just on fucking autopilot to fight and win.

70:44

Those are definitely the best fights

70:45

you'll ever see in any combat sport.

70:47

- I mean, that saying is true.

70:48

Like the exhaustion makes cowards of us all.

70:51

I mean, there's something about,

70:54

'cause I've competed a lot in jujitsu.

70:57

So there's the violence of being hit too.

70:59

But even just exhaustion, it makes you question everything.

71:03

- So true.

71:04

- It just takes you to some weird place

71:07

where your brain starts to think

71:09

you're going to die for sure.

71:11

Your brain starts to think like,

71:13

why am I doing this?

71:14

All these excuses,

71:15

all this stuff. - I love that shit.

71:17

- And then the truly heroic action

71:20

is to say fuck it in that moment.

71:22

And just to get in there.

71:24

- When you think about these fights

71:25

that you see in the UFC every fucking Saturday,

71:27

when these men and women get to this point

71:30

where they've been in a dog fight,

71:32

yet they keep fucking going and you keep trying to win.

71:36

You can't imagine what's going on inside their heads.

71:42

Self-doubt and all these other things that come into play

71:45

when exhaustion sets in

71:47

and they fucking power through it.

71:49

- Yeah, those moments, sometimes they're not,

71:51

they don't have a glorious knockout at the end,

71:53

but your decision in the third round or the fifth round

71:59

to still keep pushing forward, not running.

72:02

- [Dana] 100%.

72:03

- That doesn't matter what happened.

72:06

That is a person winning a battle over themselves.

72:09

- So true.

72:11

It's so true and it happens every fucking weekend.

72:13

It's so impressive.

72:14

I say it all the time.

72:16

The people that are involved in this sport

72:19

are this much of the population.

72:21

The people that make it to the top five

72:24

are incredibly unique, special human beings, man.

72:28

It's fucking awesome.

72:31

- You love gambling.

72:32

- I do.

72:35

- What's the biggest win of your gambling career?

72:39

Maybe psychologically, if not financially.

72:42

- Well, two things.

72:44

I won a million dollar hand one night.

72:48

It's happened one time.

72:49

A million dollar hand one night at Manila Bay.

72:54

And then one summer, I beat Caesars for 12 million

73:01

throughout the summer.

73:02

- Throughout the summer. - Yeah.

73:04

And then I'm on a pretty good run right now too.

73:07

- This is blackjack? - Yeah.

73:09

- What's the biggest loss?

73:13

- Biggest loss was,

73:18

I would call this the biggest loss

73:21

for many different reasons.

73:23

This is what, you live and you learn in life

73:25

and you figure things out as you go along.

73:29

So one night I'm over at the Rio.

73:36

And they got big suites over there.

73:38

So I go over there with some buddies

73:40

and we got one of the suites and we have some dinner

73:42

and we start drinking.

73:43

So we're having some drinks at dinner and blah, blah, blah.

73:46

Starts to ramp up, having a good time.

73:48

And I make my way down to the Thai Limit Room.

73:53

We start gambling and I continue to drink, having a blast.

74:02

I end up leaving and going home that night

74:04

and I lost like 80 grand.

74:08

So I wake up the next morning, I'm like,

74:09

"Fuck, those motherfuckers got me for 80,000 last night."

74:14

So I'm at work the next day and the host over there calls me

74:19

and he says, "Hey Dana, are you coming back?

74:23

"Do you still need the room that you guys had

74:25

"where you ate and all the shit you used?"

74:27

And I said, "No, I don't need the room,

74:29

"but don't get too comfortable with my fucking 80 grand.

74:33

"I'm coming back for it."

74:35

Dead fucking silence.

74:37

And he's like, "Dana, you lost $3 million last night."

74:43

(laughing)

74:44

I said, "What the fuck are you talking about?

74:46

"I only have a million and a half dollar credit line."

74:51

He goes, "Yeah, you made us call the GM of the hotel

74:55

"and you started calling him a fucking pussy

74:57

"and dah, dah, dah, dah."

75:00

And I went, "Yeah, no, that sounds like something

75:05

"I would do, yeah."

75:06

- So that's the real number.

75:08

- That was the real number.

75:09

And then there's been a lot of cases

75:12

where people are in Vegas and they're like,

75:17

"Oh, I lost all this money

75:19

"and they were giving me free drinks

75:21

"and I drank too much and I was taken advantage of."

75:24

No, you stupid motherfucker.

75:26

Man up, you got fucking drunk.

75:33

Alcohol is free, but you don't have to fucking drink it.

75:36

You know what I mean?

75:37

And this was a huge learning lesson for me.

75:41

So I never drank again when I was playing cards

75:45

after that night.

75:48

But yeah, when you ask me, that's the one

75:50

that stands out in my head the most

75:52

as far as having a bad loss.

75:54

And then of course I said, "Call the GM,"

75:57

and I started calling him a pussy

75:58

at three o'clock in the morning.

76:00

- [Lex] Of course you did.

76:01

- That is something I would absolutely do.

76:02

- How do you deal with those psychologically?

76:04

Do you, when you gamble, maybe this applies

76:08

to fighting too, do you love winning or hate losing more?

76:13

- They go hand in hand.

76:15

So the way that I play is, I live in Vegas,

76:19

so 2024 is a war for me.

76:25

I go to war in '24, okay?

76:27

All these nights that I play are little battles

76:30

inside the war that I will fight in '24.

76:33

Now, at the end of the year,

76:36

we will tally up all these little battles

76:39

and see where I stand on wins and losses.

76:43

And there's lots of talk out there about my gambling,

76:49

places that I've been kicked out of and things like that.

76:54

And I do pretty well.

76:58

I do pretty well, but it's what I like to do.

77:01

I don't gamble in a way that I would ever hurt myself

77:06

or hurt my family or, you know,

77:09

I'm sure you've heard the Norm Macdonald stories.

77:11

Norm Macdonald lost like his entire personal wealth

77:13

four times or something like that.

77:17

Yeah, that's not gonna happen to me.

77:19

- So you manage it, but just psychologically,

77:22

you're able to be even- - Yeah, yeah.

77:24

So when I win, it's awesome.

77:28

It's always great to win.

77:29

Winning is a great feeling in business, in sports,

77:33

in life, and definitely in gambling.

77:37

Losing is never fun, but it's part of the game.

77:41

You know what I mean?

77:42

If you wanna be in the game and it's sports,

77:46

it's business or whatever,

77:47

there's gonna be wins and there's gonna be losses.

77:50

And you have to take them both in stride

77:51

and you have to be able to, you know,

77:54

there's a lot of people, when you gamble.

77:58

And you lose and you go into a deep, dark depression.

78:02

I've seen this with guys that do it, get depressed,

78:05

gambling isn't for you, you know?

78:08

If you are the type of person that's on social media

78:11

and people say horrible things to you and you get depressed

78:14

and you shouldn't be on social media,

78:17

you know what I mean?

78:17

These are all part of being in the game.

78:20

When you're in the fucking game,

78:21

great things happen and really bad things happen.

78:24

And you gotta take it all in stride

78:26

and you gotta pick yourself up the next day,

78:28

strap your fucking shoes back on and get out there

78:31

and go to fucking war again.

78:32

That's how it works.

78:33

- That's some goggin' shit right there, all right.

78:36

I love that motivational speech.

78:38

- It's the truth though, it's the truth though.

78:41

Listen, every day when you get out of bed,

78:43

life's standing right there

78:44

to kick you in the fucking face, man.

78:46

Could be anything, could be you get up

78:49

and you walk downstairs, you got a fucking flat tire

78:51

and you're late for work and you got this and that.

78:53

Life is gonna throw all kinds of crazy shit at you.

78:56

And you have to be ready for it

78:58

and you gotta fucking deal with it.

78:59

Can't curl up into a ball, you can't run away from it,

79:02

you can't hide, you have to take all this shit head on.

79:05

You have to get up, every day when I get up out of bed,

79:08

I strap up and I'm getting ready for fucking war.

79:11

'Cause I know I'm coming in here,

79:12

I know a bunch of bad shit's gonna happen

79:14

that I'm gonna fucking deal with.

79:16

And if that's not bad enough,

79:18

when I finally get out of here,

79:20

I'm probably gonna go to the casino

79:21

and I'm gonna get into another fucking war.

79:23

You know what I mean?

79:24

I thrive in chaos, I actually love chaos.

79:28

Everybody talks about retiring, fuck that shit.

79:32

What am I gonna do when I retire?

79:33

What would I do?

79:34

What would I, I like to go to war, I like to battle,

79:38

I like to win, sometimes I lose,

79:40

but then I have to come back from the loss

79:42

and I love to build brands,

79:44

I love to set short-term and long-term goals

79:48

and then knock them all down.

79:50

This is just the stuff that excites me.

79:53

And whether it's business or gambling,

79:58

or I like being a fan of things too.

80:01

I like live music, so when I find a band that I like,

80:05

I get excited to go watch the band live or the Celtics game.

80:09

I love the fucking Boston Celtics

80:11

and I love going to the games and watching them.

80:13

This is the year,

80:14

hopefully we're gonna fucking win it this year.

80:16

These are all things that make me happy

80:19

and excite me in my life.

80:20

And it's funny because there's this post

80:23

that I post maybe three, four nights a week.

80:26

I also love the city.

80:28

I can't tell if the city of Las Vegas was built for me

80:31

or I was built for this fucking city, but I love it.

80:34

And there's this turn on Summerlin Parkway.

80:38

Every night and it's dark.

80:39

And from there you can see the entire fucking city

80:42

and it's all fucking lights and it's badass.

80:44

And I'm usually driving home

80:46

after a fucking incredible day.

80:49

This amazing day

80:50

and this unbelievable fucking life that I have.

80:54

And I have this just moment of gratitude.

80:56

Every time I take that turn and I'm like,

80:58

"God damn, I love this fucking city."

81:01

And just every night when I go home,

81:03

I'm just so happy and grateful for this life that I have.

81:06

- So you're grateful, you're celebrating,

81:07

even if the day is full of shit,

81:09

full of problems you have to solve all of this,

81:12

you're still able to put that behind you?

81:13

- I love that too.

81:15

I love problem solving.

81:16

I love taking things that seem impossible

81:22

and fucking, what's been shit on

81:25

more than this fucking company right here?

81:28

Power Slap.

81:30

- Yeah.

81:31

- This thing's a fucking beast.

81:33

It's an absolute beast.

81:35

In 13 months, that's the most successful thing

81:38

I've ever been a part of.

81:40

And I love every fucking minute of it,

81:42

especially the negativity.

81:43

I love negativity.

81:44

- Oh, so you almost feed on it.

81:46

That's great, that's great.

81:47

You're a build for this.

81:48

- I eat that shit for fucking breakfast, man.

81:50

I love it.

81:51

- What's your favorite movie about Vegas?

81:54

"Casino?"

81:54

- Yeah, it would have to be "Casino."

81:56

No doubt about it.

81:58

Do you ever see a movie that changed your life,

82:02

that actually impacted your life in some way,

82:04

shape or form?

82:05

- Probably. - Which one?

82:07

- That's a good question.

82:07

I have to think.

82:10

Well, I have a lot, a lot.

82:12

"Casino" could be one of them.

82:13

Probably taught me about women.

82:17

You know, "Forrest Gump," for me, it's a simple movie,

82:20

but it was a really good movie to show.

82:23

It reminded, 'cause I've been really fortunate in my life,

82:26

like over and over and over,

82:27

and I don't think I deserve any of it.

82:29

So I just always felt like Forrest Gump.

82:31

So when I finally saw it, it really connected with me.

82:35

It was like, okay, this universe works in weird ways

82:38

and stuff just materializes.

82:40

And you just kinda be good to people,

82:42

put that good karma out there and it happens for you.

82:44

So that was a movie like that.

82:46

- I'm actually very superstitious about that.

82:48

I believe that what you put out, you get back.

82:53

And I believe that when you have,

82:55

you should take care of other people

82:57

and you should always try to bring people up with you

83:01

and all that kind of stuff.

83:02

But the movie that changed the whole trajectory of my life

83:06

was "Vision Quest."

83:08

- [Lex] Oh, yeah.

83:08

Well, yeah, that's a good one too, yeah.

83:10

- "Vision Quest," man.

83:11

I fucking love that movie.

83:13

It's basically, it's telling the story of a kid

83:16

who really wasn't anybody in high school

83:18

and nobody kinda knew who he was.

83:19

He wasn't popular or any of that kind of shit.

83:22

And he decided that that was the year

83:25

that he was gonna make his mark.

83:27

And he was a good wrestler at 178 pounds,

83:29

but he was gonna move down to 160 something

83:31

to take on the shoot, the scariest guy and the whatever.

83:34

But there's all these little things in the movie

83:38

that really lay out what life is all about.

83:42

One of the parts is he's in a class

83:45

and he's talking about,

83:46

the teacher's talking about some poem.

83:49

And he says, "What does this poem mean to you?"

83:50

Well, this little girl's walking through the park

83:54

and all the leaves are falling off the trees

83:55

and she realizes that she's gonna die someday.

83:58

And that a lot of people think they have all this time

84:03

so they fucking waste it.

84:04

And they never go out and do what they really set out to do

84:07

or accomplish or do anything great in their life.

84:10

That's one meaning.

84:11

Then he's got the guy that he works with at work.

84:14

He's cutting weight and his nose is bleeding

84:16

and all this shit.

84:16

And this guy keeps going, "Why the fuck are you doing this?

84:18

"Pick that thing up and eat it."

84:20

Like a fucking man.

84:21

"This is ridiculous.

84:22

"I don't know why you're doing this to yourself."

84:23

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

84:24

So then when he meets the girl

84:26

and he gets to the point where he feels

84:27

like he wants to quit.

84:30

Where does he go?

84:31

He goes to that guy's fucking apartment

84:33

because he knows when he shows up at this guy's apartment,

84:36

he's gonna go, "Yeah, fuck this shit."

84:37

No, he went to work.

84:39

He went to work to talk to him and he wasn't at work.

84:42

He took the night off.

84:43

So he shows up at the fucking house,

84:45

at the shitty little fucking apartment that the guy lives in

84:48

and the guy's putting his suit and tie on and shit.

84:50

He's like, "They said you called in sick.

84:51

"What's going on?"

84:52

He's like, "Well, yeah.

84:53

"Aren't you wrestling this guy tonight?"

84:54

And he's like, "Yeah, but why would you?

84:57

"You're gonna get docked a nice pay."

84:58

And all of a sudden she says, "You know what, man?"

85:00

Then it all gets laid out.

85:02

I get the goosebumps even telling you this fucking part.

85:03

- Is that the Pele speech?

85:04

- Pele, yeah.

85:06

When he's saying about,

85:08

"I'm fucking cooking in an overnight hotel fucking thing

85:12

"and I live in this shitty apartment."

85:14

A human being can lift himself upside down and backwards

85:17

and kick a ball into a fucking net

85:19

and the whole stadium goes crazy and this guy runs around

85:21

and I'm sitting here in my fucking apartment alone

85:24

and I start crying.

85:25

Yeah, I start crying.

85:26

So the guy who's been shitting on him the whole fucking time

85:28

actually really respects him for what he's done

85:31

and sees what this kid is capable of doing

85:34

and all this shit.

85:34

This fucking movie spoke to me on so many different levels

85:39

and I think it's probably the most underrated movie

85:42

of all time when you really break down the meaning

85:45

of what this movie is about

85:46

and it fucking really spoke to me.

85:49

- That's probably the greatest movie

85:50

on one-on-one combat.

85:53

- I would agree. - Ever made.

85:55

- I would agree.

85:56

And especially if you can really hear the messages

86:00

that it's given you in this movie, it's excellent.

86:03

You know what's funny?

86:05

They just did like the, and I saw this after the fact

86:08

which completely fucking pissed me off.

86:11

They did like the 25 year or the 30 year thing.

86:14

It was filmed in Spokane, Washington.

86:16

They showed the movie at a movie theater there

86:18

and the cast members came out and spoke about it.

86:20

I would have fucking flown there for that.

86:22

Are you shitting me?

86:23

I'd have been there in fucking 30 seconds to go up there

86:26

and be a part of that.

86:28

That movie literally changed my life.

86:30

- Yeah, I suppose me too.

86:31

It made me wanna wrestle.

86:34

I mean, probably the reason I was,

86:36

maybe it made me love, fall in love with wrestling.

86:39

- Well, you know what's funny?

86:40

I wasn't even into wrestling at all

86:42

and I didn't have to be for that movie to.

86:44

- [Lex] Yeah, it's this basic human story.

86:46

- It's such a great movie.

86:47

- I mean, that's what fighting does.

86:48

It brings out the basic, like the humanity of a person

86:52

and really like if the, for the people that choose

86:54

to step up and step in the ring and then chase greatness

86:58

and actually do it from like against the long odds,

87:02

that's why it's a beautiful game.

87:03

- And it's so true.

87:04

I mean, when you think about,

87:05

like I'm 54 years old right now, like that.

87:09

I mean, it just fucking flew by.

87:13

And you think when you're young that you have all this time,

87:16

you have no time.

87:18

There's no time.

87:19

I mean, one of the quotes on the wall in the gym in there's,

87:24

"There is no tomorrow," from "Rocky III."

87:29

There is no tomorrow, fuck that shit.

87:31

Let's get all this shit done today.

87:33

- Do you think about your death?

87:35

- I'm not afraid of death, not even a little bit.

87:39

I'm not afraid of it.

87:41

I don't know if that'll be the case when I'm facing it,

87:44

when I'm looking down the barrel of it,

87:47

laying in a hospital bed somewhere.

87:49

- But for now, just squeezing as much as you can

87:51

out of every day. - 100%.

87:52

I literally, I don't even like to sleep.

87:54

My life is so fucking awesome.

87:56

I don't even wanna go to bed at night.

87:57

I don't even wanna go to sleep.

87:59

I wanna stay up fucking,

88:00

I wish I could fucking do 24 hours and never have to sleep.

88:03

That's how much I love my life.

88:05

- What has watching thousands of fights over the years

88:08

taught you about human nature, about us humans?

88:12

- I don't care what color you are,

88:13

what country you come from, or what language you speak,

88:15

we're all human beings.

88:17

Fighting's in our DNA, we get it and we like it.

88:19

And it's true, fighting is in our DNA.

88:22

It's a part of who we are.

88:23

And no matter where you are, if a fight breaks out,

88:28

it creates this fucking energy, this buzz,

88:32

this sense of fear.

88:34

I mean, a lot of different emotions happen in people

88:36

when fights break out.

88:38

But one thing that is always the case,

88:40

everybody's watching, man.

88:42

Everybody's fucking, all of their eyes are on the fight.

88:46

I mean, we were just in Mexico.

88:48

Fucking fight broke out, like in the good seats,

88:50

like right here, these seats are super expensive.

88:54

And security never fucking came.

88:57

They just let these guys fight until they gassed out.

89:00

And then everybody put their chairs back together

89:02

and sat back down and fucking,

89:03

I literally got up from my table, walked over,

89:06

and was watching this fight at the fights.

89:09

- At the fights. - Yeah.

89:11

- Humans fight and humans love watching fighting.

89:14

- Absolutely.

89:15

And that was my thought process going into buying the UFC.

89:18

And I believe that this would work everywhere.

89:21

And thank God we were right.

89:23

- Well, Dana, thank you for bringing

89:26

this very human thing of fighting,

89:28

the art of it, the science of it, the heroic stories,

89:32

the Vision Quest stories of it all.

89:34

- Boom.

89:35

- Really appreciate you talking to me, brother.

89:36

- Thank you.

89:37

Pleasure, buddy.

89:38

Thank you for the kind words.

89:40

- Thanks for listening to this conversation

89:41

with Dana White.

89:42

To support this podcast,

89:43

please check out our sponsors in the description.

89:46

And now let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali.

89:50

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men

89:54

who find it easier to live in a world they've been given

89:57

than to explore the power they have to change it.

90:01

Impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion.

90:03

Impossible is not a declaration, it's a dare."

90:08

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

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