UFC president Dana White opened up about confronting his neighbor as a teenager that changed everything for him.
White is widely credited for shaping mixed martial arts into what it is today. From the old days of no-rules cage fights to the contemporary regulated nature of the sport, UFC has come a long way since White took over the once-dying company with the Fertitta brothers.
Dana White reveals a bad neighbor who would terrorize him
In a recent interview with Grant Cardone, Dana White recounted a horrific neighbor he had that used to bully him and his single mother.
“I wouldn’t change one thing about my upbringing. It absolutely made me who I am today. I remember times when I was younger and my dad was never around, my mom worked all the time and there’d be sh*t that would happen at the house. We had this neighbor who lived behind us, this punk who knew it was a single mom with two kids. This guy used to f**k with us all the time. I’ll never forget this as long as I live.
“One time, my mom had let the dog out in the backyard and he was barking. This guy came and pulled up in our driveway and was laying on his horn. We had these diamond-shaped glasses on our door and I was like what’s going on. I went to look out and his face was right in the thing screaming, ‘shut your dog up!’ He’s going crazy. I just remember being so scared. I was 12 years old or something. I remember being so scared and going if my dad was here this would happen or whatever.”
White recalls a heated confrontation with his neighbor that changed everything
White may have been scared at the age of 12, but by the time he was 15, he was ready to deal with the issue himself. He credited that day as the moment when everything changed for him in life.
“When everything changed I was 15 years old, sitting at the kitchen table. My mom was back cleaning the pool and I heard somebody screaming. It just clicked that day. I don’t know if it’s the day you become a man or whatever. But I knew that guy was screaming at my mother. I f**king ran out back and jumped up on the wall. I was 15 and said, ‘you fat motherf**ker. I’m not 12 anymore. If you stick your fat face over this wall again, I’m going to beat the sh*t out of you.
“The saddest part is he walked in his house away from a 15-year-old kid and we never heard from him again. That guy was terrorizing a single mom and his two kids until the day I turned 15 and was going to beat the sh*t out of him. That was the moment in my life when everything changed.”
Dana White has led the UFC to achieve incredible success, especially under the dire circumstances it was in earlier. It’s clear the day he stood up to his bully boosted his stern nature and confidence to go for whatever he wanted.
