- Dana White shared the full story of how he became the UFC president
- The UFC boss came up with an idea that resulted in the birth of the UFC
UFC president Dana White looked back at how managing Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell saw him becoming the man he is today.
From fixing something to becoming something
Speaking on Big Boy TV, White detailed exactly what played out around 1999 or 2000 which resulted in him becoming the president of the UFC.
According to White, he had just turned down a huge offer from the WFA (World Fighting Alliance) when he called up then-UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz to help Ortiz resolve a dispute over money and get Liddell into the promotion.
Having realized that the UFC was about to go bankrupt, White told the Fertitta brothers about the idea of buying the company out. Once the sale was done, White was appointed as the UFC president, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“I have goosebumps telling you this f**king story, I’m on a call with Bob Meyrowitz, who the owner of the UFC, and I’m trying to negotiate Tito’s contract and I’m trying to get Chuck into the UFC. They had screwed Tito over on some money and stuff so I’m trying to get the money back that Tito got screwed over on with the UFC at the time and finally, Bob Meyrowitz f**king snaps and says ‘you know what, there is no more f**king money, I don’t even know if I have enough money to put on the next event’ then he freaks out on me right and he hangs up… I go holy sh*t, I called Lorenzo and Frank… I just got off the phone with Bob Meyrowitz, he just f**king freaked out on me man, he basically said there’s no more money with the UFC, he’s probably gonna go BK [bankrupt] blah blah blah. I think we can buy the UFC and I think we should do it,” White recalled.
“Lorenzo calls Bob Meyrowitz and the negotiation starts for the UFC. There’s no assumptions that anything’s gonna happen, I never asked for anything, whatever, long story short, we start going down the road with these guys and two months later, three months later whatever, Lorenzo ends up buying the UFC, him and Frank call me over and they’re like ‘we want you to be the president of the UFC, we want you to run it’. Just like that,” he continued.
The boss is expanding his kingdom
White has been the UFC president for 22 years now and the promotion has been performing well under his leadership. Due to the company’s prolonged success, White was able to focus on expansion. He alone has already launched his own ventures such as Power Slap League and Dana White’s Contender Series.
Check out the full video below:
