The show goes on for Dana White.
To quote a line from the movie, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, the longtime UFC boss is ‘not f****** leaving’ the promotion he has helped build to major proportions, which is worth $12B according to a valuation in 2023.
In 2001, White became the president of the UFC and has held it down ever since, promoting the biggest and baddest events in the sport of mixed martial arts. White was promoted to UFC CEO by parent company Endeavor following their merger with WWE last year.
‘All Part Of Being In The Game’
White might not be a fighter on the roster, but the 54 year-old businessman understands wins and losses aren’t limited to what happens inside the Octagon, they’re a part of everyday life.
“When I win, it’s awesome. It’s always great to win,” White told Lex Fridman.”Winning is a great feeling in business, in sports, in life, and definitely in gambling. Losing is never fun, but it’s part of the game. If you wanna be in the game and it’s sports, it’s business, or whatever, there’s gonna be wins and there’s gonna be losses and you have to take them both in stride. When you gamble and you lose and you go into a deep, dark depression, I’ve seen this with guys that do it, get depressed. Gambling isn’t for you.
“If you are the type of person that’s on social media and people say horrible things to you and you get depressed and that, you shouldn’t be on social media. These are all part of being in the game. When you’re in the f****** game, great things happen and really bad things happen, and you gotta take it all in stride. You gotta pick yourself up the next day, strap your f****** shoes back on, and get out there, and go to f****** war again. That’s how it works.”
Another Day, ‘Another F****** War’
White continued in his tangent, citing while everybody has problems, what matters is how they’re able to get through such adversity and do it all again when the sun comes up the next day.
“Every day when you get out of bed, life’s standing right there to kick you in the f****** face, man. Could be anything. Could be, you get up and you walk downstairs, you had a f****** flat tire, and you’re late for work, and you got this and that. Life is gonna throw all kinds of crazy s*** at you, right? And you have to be ready for it and you gotta f****** deal with it. You can’t curl up into a ball. You can’t run away from it. You can’t hide. You have to take all this s*** head on. You have to get up every [day].
“Every day when I get up for out of bed, I strap up and I’m getting ready for f****** war,” White added. “Because I know I’m coming in here, I know a bunch of bad s***’s gonna happen that I’m gonna f****** deal with. If that’s not bad enough, when I finally get out of here, I’m probably gonna go to the casino, and then I’m gonna get into another f****** war.”
White Rules Out Retirement
Having put on countless fights around the world for the last two decades, Dana White can’t picture himself doing anything else. This is the lifestyle the UFC CEO chose and it’s not one he’s planning on leaving anytime soon.
“I thrive in chaos. I actually love chaos. Everybody talks about retiring. F*** that s***,” White said. “What am I gonna do when I retire? What would I do? I like to go to war. I like to battle. I like to win. Sometimes I lose, but then I have to come back from the loss. I love to build brands. I love to set short-term and long-term goals and then knock them all down. This is just the stuff that excites me.”
