KMP Ep.38: Dana White -UFC Freedom 250 Will Be The Biggest Fight in History (Transcript)

I would have considered myself an ’80s or ’90s Democrat, but I’m more of a common sense guy. I’m not a very political person, but I’m all for common sense.

KATIE MILLER: What was it that changed for you?

DANA WHITE: The world losing its mind and everything going nuts. And most of the things that you and I have talked about during this podcast. I would still consider myself liberal in certain ways, but very conservative in others. A little bit of both.

KATIE MILLER: Do you think politics and sports should stay separate? And even outside of UFC, right? You’re talking NFL, NBA.

DANA WHITE: I would love to. I think, when you think about in the ’80s and ’90s, religion, right? That’s basically what— like politics now, it’s like religion. I mean, everybody’s fighting over all this crazy shit. And I think we should go back to— you don’t know who you voted for, and you don’t, you know.

But I think it’s up to the athlete or the organization or whatever, if they want to be involved in politics or talk on politics, it’s up to the individuals or the teams or the leagues or whatever they are.

Dana White and President Trump’s Friendship

KATIE MILLER: What’s one thing you agree with President Trump on and what’s one thing you disagree with President Trump on?

DANA WHITE: Well, I don’t think that—

KATIE MILLER: Doesn’t have to be political.

DANA WHITE: Yeah. Well, what we don’t agree on is the best Rocky ever. We argue about that probably more than we should. It’s kind of weird.

But I think when somebody is president, they’re going to do things you agree with and things you don’t agree with. But you’re not in that position. And whoever the president is— at the end of the day, my relationship with him, we’re friends. And you don’t always agree with your friends on lots of things, but it doesn’t mean you don’t be friends with them anymore.

He’s a great guy. He’s a great human being. He has a great family. I love his family. Ivanka and Jared are two of the greatest people you’ll ever meet. So I don’t really get into any of that stuff. As friends, I would say the biggest but weirdest thing we’ve ever disagreed on is Rocky is the best Rocky movie.

The Future of UFC and the White House Event

KATIE MILLER: How do you see the event at the White House shaping the future of UFC? Do you think it draws more fans in? Do you think it forever elevates that of combat sports?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, I think that more people are going to tune in globally for this fight, whether they have ever watched the UFC, like the UFC, don’t like the UFC, just to see it at the White House. So obviously for the brand, I mean, even leading up to it, it’s all anybody’s talking about. Every time I see people or talk to people. So yeah, it’s really big for the brand.

Behind the Scenes with Athletes

KATIE MILLER: Who surprised you the most behind the scenes as you work with some of the biggest athletes in sports?

DANA WHITE: As far as what?

KATIE MILLER: That either was kinder than you expected, crazier than you expected, drunker than you expected, some type of— when you meet somebody and you’re like, “Huh?”

DANA WHITE: I wouldn’t say that anybody really surprised me, but somebody like Conor McGregor— the first night that I went to dinner with him and met him, I literally left the dinner and called my partner Lorenzo and I said, “Let me tell you what, I don’t know if this guy is good enough or not, if he can fight, but if this guy can even throw a punch, he’s going to be the biggest star ever.” So I did know that.

And then I would say, if you want to talk about surprised, it was probably Ronda Rousey, because I was not even remotely interested in having women fight in the UFC at that point in time. I was trying to get people to accept men fighting in a cage and get it on television, let alone women. And then I sat down and I met with her and we talked for like 20 minutes. And 20 minutes into the conversation, in my head, I started going, “Holy shit, I might actually do this. She’s the one. She’s the one that I think I can launch this whole thing with. This might work.” That would probably be the thing that surprised me the most in my career.

Fighter Safety and Health

KATIE MILLER: You walked away from fighting because of the long-term effects. I previously talked with Mike Tyson on the podcast and talked about how he has some issues from fighting as well. What do you say to others who are engaging in fighting? How has it shaped the way you run UFC? Have you put in place other things?

DANA WHITE: Good question. Let’s think about this. In the 30 years of the UFC, there’s never been a death or serious injury. Cheerleading can’t say that, okay? We spend so much money on health and safety, and obviously the big one is brain health.

But when you’re a young, aggressive male that comes from places that people like you and I can never even imagine, and fighting is your way out, or fighting is what you were put on this earth to do, there’s just no talking you out of it. And the stuff that’s wrong with me from fighting, I wouldn’t take back one punch. I wouldn’t change any of it. It was some of the greatest times of my life. It was what I was passionate about.

And you could look at— there are people that work in coal mines, end up dying because of what they do. And many other jobs— construction, you name it. Life is dangerous. And one thing we know is we’re all going to die someday. But how do you want to live? And what do you want to do? And what gets you out of bed every day? And what excites you? And what are you passionate about?

No matter what it is— some people it’s jumping out of airplanes, everybody has their own crazy shit that they’re into. And as a grown adult, you make these decisions on your own going in, knowing what the dangers are.

Passion for the Work

KATIE MILLER: Do you think you’ll ever not do this? You light up like no one I’ve ever seen talking, maybe except the president who talks about what he does. Do you think you’d ever not do this?

DANA WHITE: No. No. And I can’t even imagine a day where I actually consider retiring. I just can’t see it happen. I mean, I go on these vacations for 10 days. The generation before me, when they used to talk about retiring— “I’m going to retire and sit on the beach and drink margaritas”—

KATIE MILLER: You’d be bored.

DANA WHITE: Yeah. When you do it, how many days can you sit on the beach and drink margaritas? I’ll be on a 10-day vacation and I’m like, “If I got to put suntan lotion on my body one more time, get me the hell out of here, I’m ready to go back to work.” You could take these breaks, but then you want to get back and you want to get up every day and be excited and passionate about something.

Marriage and Relationships

KATIE MILLER: So your wife, you met when you were how old?

DANA WHITE: We were like 12 or 13.

KATIE MILLER: I think what blows me away about that is you look at fertility rates in our country, you look at the declining marriage rates in our country. You specifically look at— I was reading an article today about how young women hate men more than ever. They’re like, “Men are good for nothing.” You’re like, how did we get here? And so for someone like you, how did you know so young that that was meant to be your person and vice versa?

Relationships, Family, and the UFC

DANA WHITE: Well, I wouldn’t say that we knew that young. We were friends. So we were friends when we were in school, and we didn’t get together until we were 25 years old, but we’d known each other. I think that probably happens a lot. People you grew up with, that you’ve known for a long time and that you trust and have a personal relationship with are usually the people you probably end up with. I’m not saying that’s always the case, but I would bet the majority of the time that’s the way it works.

KATIE MILLER: You have a lot of experience with young men and with young women. Are you seeing that trend where people are delaying finding their significant other, starting a family, and for sake of their careers?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, I think you nailed it. It’s a whole weird thing right now with young men and women. I think the other thing that’s happening is a lot of people are having kids and not getting married. Times are changing from when I was young.

But these young men— I think, you know, we went through COVID and the whole woke era and all the weird s* that went on during that period, a lot of the young males felt displaced. I don’t know, it was a weird time. And I always get accused— I’ve talked to Linnae, my head of PR, we talk about this all the time because she sits in all these interviews where I’m accused of being the head of the manosphere, whatever that means. And that, you know, toxic masculinity.

KATIE MILLER: The only people who hate toxic masculinity are women who hate themselves.

DANA WHITE: Interesting. I got men saying it to me. What’s that mean? What’s that mean when you have men saying it to you?

KATIE MILLER: It means that men in our country need to grow a pair of balls.

DANA WHITE: Well, what’s funny is I did this— I spoke at Harvard Business School, and the guy who was interviewing me for the Q&A was the guy who did the Forbes story on me. I was on the cover of Forbes, and he kept talking about the manosphere and toxic masculinity. By the end, I told Lene, he’s got me convinced. I think I might actually be a toxic male.

He was talking about my office and the things that are in my office. And I grew up in the ’80s when men were men. Now it’s a whole nother world out there.

KATIE MILLER: And don’t you think it’s that women want a man to take care of them, to step into that provider caretaker role? So many men are not doing that these days, and that’s why it’s just called toxic masculinity— what is a traditional gender role.

DANA WHITE: It is never ever going to change. I don’t care how powerful a woman is, what she does. Women want to be taken care of, treated right, and they want to feel safe. That’s nature, and it’s a man’s job to do all that.

As I get deeper into this, you’ll realize how toxic my masculinity is. But it’s like— I hate this whole men’s mental health bullshit that they talk about. Unfortunately, when you’re a man, you are the provider. You are the one that takes care of your family. You are the example for your kids when they grow up— your sons and your daughters. And unfortunately, you can’t be that guy that’s— I see these guys posting on social media, “Oh, I had a bad day and I’m so sad,” and all this other crazy s*.

KATIE MILLER: So unattractive.

DANA WHITE: Oh, it’s just unattractive to other males, let alone women. I can’t even imagine. Yeah, I’m really against all that s*.

KATIE MILLER: So yeah, I’m a strong believer in that. When feminism started increasing in our country, so did the decline in the birth rate. Because as they told women, “You need to be equal to a man, you need to go to a workplace,” women stopped having babies because they thought that’s what they needed to do— have this career that served them. And the career ladder is how they were going to become equal to that of a man.

And it’s like when women lost their femininity, instead of having a baby and having a family— which is the most beautiful thing I can do as a contributor to this society. Doesn’t matter how much I make, it doesn’t matter how much I earn or what my job title is. Being a mother is the preeminent role. And when society told women that that wasn’t it anymore is when you started having weak men. That’s my theory.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, you could be right. I don’t know how it all started, but there’s nothing I hate more than when men don’t act like men. It drives me absolutely crazy.

Traditional Roles and Family Life

KATIE MILLER: So there’s two divergent ways to discuss this with you. One is to say that in your own family you have three kids, you have a wife— you’re not on your second or third wife, to my understanding. So how do you think that having those traditional gender roles has benefited your family and benefited your children?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, well, in every way. I mean, I’m the guy that goes out and I work and I provide for my family. And what my wife is really good at— I’m busy. You were just saying, are you traveling as much? And yeah, I travel a lot. She’s the one that says, “I don’t give a s* what you’re doing, we’re taking 10 days and we’re going here for this, and the kids have a play,” and this, that, you know. She runs the house and makes sure that I am aware of what’s going on with the family, and we’re going to go spend some time together.

I might not be there every day but we’ll take 3 big trips a year and go away for 10 days and spend real good time together. My kids are older now, they’re 24, 25. My daughter is 19 and she goes to college. And if I wasn’t there for their games or their plays or their whatever, I was lucky in that I had one of the biggest production studios in Nevada. So we would literally livestream their games and I would watch them and I could interact with them through technology. I was very lucky where technology was when my kids were growing up. But I’ve been a part of everything that they did growing up and still now today.

KATIE MILLER: What’s your favorite memory of raising your children— when you’re like, “We were at home, we were doing this,” or “I was carting them to this or that thing?”

DANA WHITE: Yeah, so no matter how busy I was or what I did or how late I was out the night before, I always drove my kids to school. And taking the kids to school, I used to love it.

And there’s tons of great memories— we went on a trip to Bora Bora one time, and I tell everybody, it’s a pain in the ass to get there, but it is the greatest time that you will ever spend with your family if you take them to Bora Bora. It’s amazing. Probably the greatest trip I’ve ever been on. And I love Italy and some other places, but Bora Bora— you have to— when you’re done having your 43 kids, when the youngest one is old enough, go on a trip to Bora Bora for a few days, and it’s special.

KATIE MILLER: Is it because you were off the grid or is it because of the landscape? What made it better?

DANA WHITE: Everything about it. It is definitely off the grid. They have the huts that are in the water and you literally jump out your back door. And Bora Bora— basically, it’s the mouth of a volcano that Bora Bora is in. And then once you get out, it’s like in the middle of the ocean. But inside the mouth of this volcano— and I’m not a big ocean guy and all that s*— the greatest snorkeling you could ever do.

Yeah, it’s just hard to explain. You have to experience it. I’m just telling you, I’ve done just about everything you could do. When your kids are young, take them to Bora Bora, and I promise you, when I see you in a few years again, you’ll tell me you were right. Greatest trip we’ve ever been on.

KATIE MILLER: All right, I’ll add it to our list. So what did your wife cook dinner every night for your family, and how did that work? Family dinners— that’s very important.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, well, she’s Italian, so yeah, family dinners are important. And on Sundays she’ll have her family over and our kids, and her family is very involved with the kids and everything too. Grandparents— there’s nothing better than having good grandparents. I had incredible grandparents, so it’s special.

Guiding Young Fighters Through Fame

KATIE MILLER: So I said there’s two divergent ways to look at this. One was through the fact that you live by example and you have a beautiful family. And then the second is to say that you have a lot of young men— and young women— that you’re responsible for at UFC. What do you say to them and what encouragement do you give to them to kind of stay on the right path, so to speak?

DANA WHITE: Nobody has ever asked me that before. So obviously we get into situations where we will take these people that nobody knows, and then all of a sudden, whether it’s coming off The Ultimate Fighter, Contender Series, or just coming into the UFC, you start to become famous. And fame is a very weird thing, and some people deal with it well and some people just nosedive and mess their whole lives up. And I’ve dealt with both.

One of the things that I’ve noticed early on— and I’ll give the best example I can give you— is The Ultimate Fighter. So we filmed this show, then it airs, and there’s a gap between when they leave from filming to when it actually airs. So I always tell them, “I don’t know anything about your life personally, but as soon as this show airs, everything’s going to change and it’s going to get really weird.”

“Whoever gives a s that you’re coming home tomorrow is probably who you should stick with.” And it could be girlfriend, wife, it could be your trainers, your managers, whoever they are. As soon as you start to become famous, all the creeps are going to come out of the woodwork and start trying to work their way into your life and tell you all these things that they can do for you. And it can be anything— managers, women, whatever. Whoever gives a s that you’re coming home tomorrow is probably who you stick with.

And I’ve seen a lot of these fighters start to head toward divorce once they become famous and they start to make money. And I always try to encourage them not to do it, especially if they have kids. Because I’ve seen so many people— you go out and you’re on the road, 22,000 people are going crazy when you walk into the arena. Pictures, autographs. And then you get home to reality and you got 2 or 3 kids and your wife’s like, “Take the trash out, do this, do that.” And these guys’ egos start to get in the way.

And so if you end up getting divorced and then you get remarried and you start all over and you left these kids behind, the grass isn’t greener. It’s going to be the same s* with a different person. That’s just the reality of life. And I try to talk these guys out of it. I don’t know if I answered your question, but that’s the best answer I got.

KATIE MILLER: Do you encourage them to find someone and settle down? Do you find that that makes someone better, or do you just not care? Like how does that work? That’s beyond your purview.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, that is none of my business. None of my business. But when these guys start to go through it in their marriage— because fame is a very crazy, weird thing. And everybody thinks they want to be famous. They start to be famous, then it’s lonely. The only thing fame is good for is getting into restaurants. Other than that, it’s f*ing useless.

KATIE MILLER: How much money does a guy go from making? So say they go from being broke to how much, how quickly?

From Welfare to Hundreds of Millions: Conor McGregor’s Story

DANA WHITE: Well, it depends on— I mean, the best example would be Conor McGregor. You know, he was on what you would consider welfare in Ireland when he started. And, you know, guys made hundreds of millions of dollars.

KATIE MILLER: Not doing bad.

DANA WHITE: Yeah.

The Moment Dana Knew UFC Would Work

KATIE MILLER: When you took UFC from near bankruptcy to being a global powerhouse, what moment was it for you that you were like, okay, I got it, this is going to work?

DANA WHITE: The Ultimate Fighter, the finale of The Ultimate Fighter season 1, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar fought, and as soon as the fight was over, I said, that’s it, we got it.

Power Slap: From Zero to 1 Billion Views a Month

KATIE MILLER: Is there something else in a parallel today that you look at that’s also failing where you’re like, I could go take that from zero to hero? That’s outside of UFC, because if you’ve done it once, you can probably strike gold twice. So what is it?

DANA WHITE: Power Slap. Literally, I saw these guys in ’17, ’18 slapping each other on social media. I took a deeper dive into it and I said, “Holy s*, this is interesting.” And I called the Fertitta brothers and I said, “Hey, I’m into this slapping stuff. I think I’m going to do this.” And they said, “How much money you need?” And I said, “I need $1 million from both of you.” So all 3 of us put up $1 million and this thing does 1 billion views a month.

KATIE MILLER: No way.

DANA WHITE: 1 billion views a month. Yeah, it’s the most successful thing I’ve ever been a part of in such a short amount of time.

Bringing the Fertittas into the Trump Orbit

KATIE MILLER: Did you bring them into the Trump orbit or how did that work?

DANA WHITE: I think that, well, they’re hardcore Republicans. And, you know, my relationship with the president enabled me to create a relationship with them, with the president.

Building UFC: Talent, Travel, and New Markets

KATIE MILLER: So if you look back at the history of what you’ve done for UFC, when you went to the Fertitta brothers and said, “Let’s do this,” to present day, you’ve done a lot of time, energy spending trying to recruit, retain good talent, and really turn around UFC from when you went to them and said, “Let’s get going.” What do you think today, as you’re still trying to build the brand, are you still traveling as much? What are you looking for when you go look for a potential fighter? Where do you think are the new, like, up-and-coming markets?

DANA WHITE: Yes, I still travel a lot and it’s all about finding new talent. So the difference is the UFC has become a global sport now. So there isn’t a place on earth that I can’t find a fighter. I mean, we’re going to do a fight for the second time this year in Azerbaijan. We haven’t done a fight in Spain yet, but I can literally get a fighter from anywhere in the world.

So people, when I grew up, your parents would put you in karate or taekwondo. Mixed martial arts is the new martial art that everybody trains in whether they’re going to become a fighter or not. So it’s much easier to find talent now than it was 25 years ago.

KATIE MILLER: Do you find that consistent across foreign countries?

DANA WHITE: Yes. Oh, yeah. Especially in places like Russia and, you know, a lot of these rough countries. There’s a lot of talent coming out of there.

A Day in the Life: Operations, Recruiting, and Building Events

KATIE MILLER: How much of your day do you spend just doing operations versus recruiting versus building new events?

DANA WHITE: All of it. I mean, I literally do all of that every day because now I’m involved in boxing. You know, I told you, Power Slap, the UFC. So we’re always looking for new talent in all of those different companies. We’re always looking where we’re going to put on the next events. You know, that’s all part of everything that I do every day.

KATIE MILLER: Do you personally review every new fighter that comes in? Like, do you just know now when you see somebody?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, well, what happens is I have a matchmaking team that tees me up on the guys. We do a show called the Contender Series, which is literally the best show on television if you’re a fight fan. All unsigned guys come in.

KATIE MILLER: Mm-hmm.

DANA WHITE: They fight right there. It’s like a job interview. And I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, you’re obviously really good. That’s why you’re here. Or the matchmakers wouldn’t show me right here, right now who you are and what you have. The best fight show on TV. And we do that once a year. And that is like my favorite thing to do. I could do that. I actually like that better than seeing the big stars fight. So I’m all about recruiting and watching and evaluating young up-and-coming talent.

The Best Event and the Best Fight

KATIE MILLER: What’s been the best event you’ve put on and the best fight you’ve watched?

DANA WHITE: Hmm, the best event I’ve ever put on, it would have to be the Sphere. I would have to say the Sphere. Have you been yet?

KATIE MILLER: No.

DANA WHITE: All right, when you’re in between having kids, here’s what you need to do, okay? Whatever band you and your husband love, you have to see them play at the Sphere in Las Vegas. It’s a really cool experience. Or what you do is you take your kids and you all go to Vegas and you do The Wizard of Oz, because they have The Wizard of Oz playing in there.

KATIE MILLER: Much more my speed. I said that’s much more my speed.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the Eagles did a stint there, and that’s, you know, all these great bands. It’s a really cool experience. So the best event I ever did was there. Hardest one we’ve ever pulled off until the White House. And the best fight I’ve ever seen— I mean, that’s a tough one. We just figured out that in my 25 years of doing this, I’ve watched over 10,000 fights. So to pick one that was the best I’ve ever seen would be tough.

Celebrity Moments at UFC Events

KATIE MILLER: So there’s been a lot of celebrities who have come to UFC. Did you know that they were coming in advance? And who’s been like, “Oh man, I cannot believe they came to my event?” There’s gotta be one of those moments.

DANA WHITE: Well, yeah, probably. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I would say the only one that I didn’t know was coming was, like, we’re at an event one time and somebody goes, “Bruno Mars is here.” I’m like, “Bruno Mars is here?” So I walk over to him, I’m like, “What are you doing?” He’s in these seats over on the— I’m like, “What are you doing? Why don’t you—” He’s like, “Nah, nah, buy my own ticket.” Buys his own tickets, walks in the front doors like everybody else does, sits in his seats, then leaves. Bruno Mars.

And speaking of Bruno Mars, have you ever seen him?

KATIE MILLER: No.

DANA WHITE: I don’t care if you don’t like that type of music. I don’t care if you don’t know one song. If you’ve never seen Bruno Mars in concert, it is one of the greatest. He’s one of the greatest performers of all time.

KATIE MILLER: Did you go to his concert after he went to UFC?

DANA WHITE: Yes, I did. So I went and saw a show. He does this, he plays at the Park MGM Theater, which is a small venue. When him and his band play, you feel like there’s nowhere they’d rather be than right there on stage playing. It’s one of the greatest shows you will ever see. Anybody watching this, if you’ve never seen Bruno Mars, trust me, you need to.

Raising His Daughter vs. His Sons

KATIE MILLER: I want to go back quickly to how you raised your family. You’ve said publicly you’ve raised your sons differently than you’ve raised your daughter.

DANA WHITE: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

KATIE MILLER: How so?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, well, my sons could do things that my daughter couldn’t, and I don’t give a s* what anybody says about that. There are things that your boys can do that your daughter can’t. And I was very involved in her, you know, her relationships, from the first one.

KATIE MILLER: What happened when she brought a guy home the first time?

DANA WHITE: I’ve had some—

KATIE MILLER: I’d be very scared to do that if you were my dad.

DANA WHITE: The first one— you know, she was a freshman in high school. Without telling this whole story, but you know, she was supposed to be home, and me and my daughter are like, you know, we’re cool. Her and my wife fight like they’re sisters, and my wife was out of town. She’s like, “Hey,” starts blowing me up, “Savannah is supposed to be home at 11. You make sure—” I said, “Relax, I got it, you know, me and Savannah, whatever.” 11:03, 11:04, 11:05. So I FaceTime her. She pushes me to— and we’re not like that.

So this whole thing blows up. Now she had somebody who used to drive her around and whatever because she’s a freshman, until she got a license, got a car, and she wasn’t with her. So this whole thing blows up, and let’s just say the poor kid that brought her home, yeah, he knows. It was— I’m like, “This is going to be interesting. Let me see if the dad calls me on this one.” But without getting into it, it was not a good night.

KATIE MILLER: Oh boy. What’s the—

DANA WHITE: She was on her way home, but the person who was supposed to be driving her home wasn’t driving her home. It was somebody else.

KATIE MILLER: Did you go outside?

DANA WHITE: Yeah. Oh, you damn right I did. Yeah. And I’ve never done anything like that with my sons. My sons are going to have to deal with their own relationships and all that stuff. But my daughter, yeah, I’ve been very involved in all that stuff.

KATIE MILLER: Did the poor kid survive?

DANA WHITE: He did. He did. And then he ended up becoming her boyfriend, and he never came to the house ever the entire time they dated.

KATIE MILLER: Never came.

DANA WHITE: Never. Not once did that kid come to the house after that night ever again. Yeah. But he ended up being her boyfriend. Yeah.

Watching the Kids Grow Up and Leave the House

KATIE MILLER: What’s been the hardest part about stepping back as your kids have gotten older?

DANA WHITE: It hasn’t been hard for me. I’m actually— it’s been really hard for my wife, but not for me. I’m actually happy for them that they’re transitioning into these new places in their life. I’m happy for them.

You know, when my oldest son left the house first, it was weird. A certain energy leaves your house when your first kid leaves, and then, you know, obviously the second and the last. You know, it’s— you go through all these changes. The first one leaves and it’s weird. Then the second one leaves and it’s weird. And then, you know, you kind of know what to expect by the time the third one leaves. I’ve been okay with it. I’ve been good.

Teaching Kids About Money and Privilege

KATIE MILLER: How did you teach your kids about money and privilege growing up? Probably the way they did.

DANA WHITE: We never talked about money ever. We just lived like normal, you know. And I got to credit my wife 100% for all this. What is normal to them? Like, we had a nice house and we had nice cars and things like that, but we never talked about money, and it wasn’t like that, and it’s still not like that.

And my youngest son wanted to drop out of school, college, and start a business. He came back, he pitched me it. I said, “This is actually not a bad idea, but you’re going to work. You’re not going to just, you know— so you’re going to go out and you’re going to put in applications. I’m not going to make calls. I’m not.” So I made him go out, put out applications. I said, “If I drop dead tomorrow, this is what you’re qualified to do. You know, you didn’t go to college, you know.” So he went out, put out applications, and he ended up working at U-Haul for a while.

KATIE MILLER: Did he drop out and work at U-Haul?

Fatherhood, Success, and Life Lessons

DANA WHITE: So after he dropped out, he had to go out and look for jobs, and he got a job at U-Haul, and he had to clean out the back of the trucks, he had to fix broken tail lights, he had to move trucks from different places. You have to have that shitty job that you don’t like at a young age so that you can understand. I could have made 1,000 phone calls and got him some, you know — nope, we’re not doing that. And to his credit, he went out, he did it, and he learned.

KATIE MILLER: Did he go back to school or did he start?

DANA WHITE: No, he’s involved in this business. He’s — yeah, he’s — it’s a great idea. Everything he said to me was dead on with this business and how it would go. And it was actually a brilliant idea, and it’s what he’s into and what he’s passionate about.

KATIE MILLER: Has fatherhood changed your perspective on success and what really matters?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, definitely. And that’s the other thing, growing up their whole life, I was never, you know, “you should be a doctor or a lawyer, you got to do this and that.” My thing is, for my kids, is when everybody asks me what the key to being successful is — people think the key to success is money or fame or any of this stuff — if you get up every day and you’re happy and you like your life, you are more successful than most of the people in this world. The key to success is being happy, whatever that means. My kids told me, “Hey Dad, I want to pump gas when I get older. I love being — I love the smell and this and that.” Awesome, knock yourself out, go be happy.

Would You Rather

KATIE MILLER: So in every episode of the podcast, we play the game of Would You Rather. You can choose one or the other, that’s it. Would you rather have every fight end in a controversial decision or every fight end in 10 seconds?

DANA WHITE: Neither. I want neither of those. Those are both horrible. We’d be out of business in 6 months. Those are both horrible.

KATIE MILLER: So which one?

DANA WHITE: Those are brutal. Controversial decision that pisses everybody off, or over in 10 seconds, which would piss everybody off if every fight was over in 10 seconds. The great thing about fighting, and especially in MMA, is there’s so many different ways to win and lose. So what I sell for a living, I sell “holy shit” moments, right? So when I put on a fight, and I put on a fight almost every Saturday, I’m asking you to stay home every Saturday or to come to my fight. And I got to have 3 or 4 “holy shit” moments where, if you’re at home, at a bar, or you’re live in the venue, everybody jumps out of their seats. And it’s the variety of wins — the way the fights end — that makes it so exciting.

KATIE MILLER: Would you rather have Taylor Swift handle all of your sports betting picks for a year or face Logan Paul in a slap fight challenge?

DANA WHITE: Taylor Swift is impressive. What that woman has built. I’m going to tell you a crazy story. Okay, you’re like, “No, this isn’t how this game works. You’re supposed to answer the f*ing questions here.”

So I’m in a meeting with Walmart corporate, and they’re telling me about their business. They were telling me that one of their stores, their whole sporting goods section got wiped out — canoes, tents, everything. People went in and bought it all, and the store was like, “This is crazy, what’s going on?” And they realized like 10 miles out of town there was some sort of festival. So people were coming in and buying tents and all this stuff.

So they try to see what’s going on in all the different areas. Then adult diapers started selling out in all of their stores. One store got hit — all the adult diapers were gone. Then a week later, another store in another city, all the adult diapers got wiped out. Taylor Swift concerts. They were buying adult diapers so they didn’t miss one song.

KATIE MILLER: No.

DANA WHITE: Yeah. So when you really know you’ve hit a level of success — where grown-ups are buying adult diapers so they don’t miss one of your songs at your concert — I don’t know how you can gauge success better than that.

KATIE MILLER: Taylor Swift, good for adult diapers.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, I’ll let Taylor Swift do my sports betting for me.

KATIE MILLER: Would you rather run the UFC with no social media or no pay-per-view?

DANA WHITE: No pay-per-view.

KATIE MILLER: Money.

DANA WHITE: We’re not pay-per-view now. We just went to Paramount. We’re on Paramount now and it’s streaming. It’s no pay-per-view.

KATIE MILLER: Would you rather corner your kid in their first pro fight or be the referee for it?

DANA WHITE: I did corner my kid in his first pro fight. My son Aiden fought and I cornered him. Yeah.

KATIE MILLER: Who would you rather have co-host the Roast of Dana White — Donald Trump and Tony Hinchcliffe, or Joe Rogan and Theo Von?

DANA WHITE: That’s funny. You’d have to do Trump and Tony. I mean, that would be brutal. Joe Rogan doesn’t like roasts. He doesn’t believe in roasts — that you have a friend that you care about and you go shit all over him. He doesn’t believe in that. Trump and Tony absolutely believe in it.

Cheat Meals, Crazy Purchases, and Meteorites

KATIE MILLER: What’s your go-to cheat meal?

DANA WHITE: Italian pasta.

KATIE MILLER: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever spent money on?

DANA WHITE: Meteorites.

KATIE MILLER: What?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, exactly. There you go. See, great answer. I own a bunch of meteorites.

KATIE MILLER: Can you explain that further for me, please?

DANA WHITE: When you make money, you buy some dumb shit. So when you go into the UFC offices, I have a saber-toothed tiger skull. It’s like the nicest skull that exists. If you went to the La Brea Tar Pits, it’s where they have the most — none of them are like my skull. The full skull, the teeth, everything.

KATIE MILLER: What’s that run you these days?

DANA WHITE: I don’t know what it’s worth now, but I think I paid like $500,000 or $600,000 for it when I got it.

KATIE MILLER: Cool.

DANA WHITE: I have a full samurai from the early 1600s. I have samurai swords from the 1600s, and I own meteorites. One of the meteorites was found in the 1800s. I have like 6.

KATIE MILLER: So where do you go to buy those?

DANA WHITE: Did you ever see Joe Dirt?

KATIE MILLER: Where do you go to buy the meteorites though?

DANA WHITE: You buy them in auctions, like through Sotheby’s. So you remember in Joe Dirt when he thought he had a meteorite and it was basically — you know, the things that they drop out of the toilets from the airplanes.

KATIE MILLER: Yeah.

DANA WHITE: So I actually bought a meteorite and I sent it to David Spade and I said, “Hey, Joe Dirt, now you actually really own a meteorite.”

AI, Rude Celebrities, and Daily Routine

KATIE MILLER: Do you use AI at all at UFC? How are you going to integrate it?

DANA WHITE: So the White House promo that we just did is AI.

KATIE MILLER: That’s cool.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, the whole promo is AI. Even my voice isn’t my real voice.

KATIE MILLER: Wow.

DANA WHITE: Yeah. We put together the whole promo for the White House without one guy going into the sound booth filming or anything. The only thing that’s real in the spot is the fight footage.

KATIE MILLER: Do you think that’s going to be the future of it?

DANA WHITE: Already is. It’s not the future. It’s now. It’s already happening.

KATIE MILLER: Who’s the rudest celebrity you’ve ever met?

DANA WHITE: Oh, that’s a good question. What a great question. Let me really think about this so I can really f*ing stick it to whoever it was. So who will we run into? That’s it. Who?

KATIE MILLER: Diddy.

DANA WHITE: Oh, Diddy. 100%. The biggest douchebag ever. But the other one is the owner of the Warriors. I love going to NBA games. I’m a big Celtics fan. And me and Ari Emanuel go to Celtics versus Warriors, right? So I got my Celtics hoodie on and we’re sitting there — I can’t remember his name, the owner — he’s like the majority owner, him and his wife. And they come in and they’re sitting a couple seats over from us. And he walks up to me, he’s like, “Oh, I heard you were here,” this and that. He’s like, “Are you serious with that? With that hoodie?” I think he’s joking. So he literally starts trying to unzip my hoodie, and I start grabbing his — I’m going to pull his off too if we’re going to — you know? And his wife’s talking smack to me, and I’m thinking this is all in fun. And then she goes like this, and she’s got championship rings on every finger. And I go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.”

So we go through this whole thing, and he sits down and we’re watching the game, and halftime’s coming up. Now, if you’ve ever gone to an NBA game, at the end they have like a green room and stuff that you go back in. And Ari leans over to me and says, “You’re not going to be able to go back there if you don’t take that hoodie off.” And I said, “Well, tell him he can keep his stale fing pretzels and his fing shitty beer. I’ll sit here during halftime. I’m not taking my f*ing Celtics hoodie off.”

And to Ari’s credit, me and Ari sat out there during halftime. I’m actually pissed off because I didn’t realize last night the Celtics played in Philly, right? So I go into Philly when the Celtics — it’s the playoffs right now — and the Philly fans are incredible, man. They’re always yelling at me, “You got some balls wearing that in here, UFC sucks!” They’re yelling stuff, and it’s part of the fun of being a fan of these different teams.

And you’re getting these owners and these guys right now that don’t want the opposing fans. I just saw these two guys talking about the Red Sox, which is my team in baseball, bitching because they sell Yankee gear to the Yankee fans. And listen, I am not a Yankee fan. I’m a Red Sox fan. But you want different fans to show up and just create this energy and buzz inside your arenas. It’s like if I only wanted Conor McGregor fans to show up to all my fights — it’s a weird thing that’s going on in sports right now. But obviously he’s one of the rudest people that I’ve ever come across. It was f*ing crazy.

The other one is P. Diddy. Tony Hawk used to have these charity events. And when my kids were little, you’d go to these charity events and lots of celebrities would be there, so everybody would do things for each other’s kids. So I had my niece at one of them, and Diddy shows up. It was at Ron Burkle’s house. And my niece was all excited, like, “Oh my God, P. Diddy’s here!” I said, “Awesome, yeah, go take a picture with him.” She comes back and I’m like, “Did you get a picture?” She’s like, “No, they were scary.” The guys there with fing 10 security guards. You need security at a fing kids event? And they were rude to her and scared her. That’s who’s listening to your fing shitty music, okay? That’s who’s listening to this. Are you fing kidding me? And that’s how you’re going to treat some girl that’s a fan and wanted a picture with you?

So Conor McGregor was a P. Diddy fan. Conor ran into him at a USC game, I think, and wanted to punch him in the face when he met him. So, yeah.

KATIE MILLER: What’s your typical day like?

DANA WHITE: I get up every day around 8 o’clock, go to the gym, work out, and then I’m in the office all day.

KATIE MILLER: Because the guys are going to care, what’s your workout routine?

Health, Habits, and Life Philosophy

DANA WHITE: Well, I’m 56, so my routine now is not to get fat and not to get hurt, you know what I mean? I’m not in there trying to break any world records or anything. I’m just— those are my two goals: don’t get fat and don’t get hurt.

KATIE MILLER: What do you eat in a typical day?

DANA WHITE: Well, yesterday was a really bad day.

KATIE MILLER: What’d you eat?

DANA WHITE: So I met this guy Gary Brecka like 3, 4 years ago. And I literally went on this total health kick, got in the best shape of my life at like 54 and 55. And then, in the last, I’d say, 8 months, I got into cigars. I started smoking cigars. And I love this Yamazaki Japanese whiskey that goes with the cigar. So the last 8 months, I’ve been living a little more than I did the last 3 years.

KATIE MILLER: Have you talked to Bobby Kennedy about the diet he’s put everybody else on? It’s like only protein with fermented vegetables.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, oh, that makes sense. So listen, these guys that can do these hardcore diets and live like that for 20 years, I’m impressed. You know Rob Lowe, the actor? I heard this guy’s been like keto for like 30 years, but that’s why he’s looked exactly the same, and he looks great, right?

KATIE MILLER: Yeah. Looks just like he did.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, I agree. Well, that ain’t me. That ain’t me. I couldn’t do it that long. I get on these kicks. So I meet Gary Brecka. I literally built this whole facility at UFC headquarters with the red light bed, and I still do that stuff every day as part of my workout. The Superhuman Protocol. I do it every day. I cold plunge this morning. I have a cold plunge in my room, my hotel, everywhere I travel to. I do not get up and not cold plunge ever.

KATIE MILLER: Okay.

DANA WHITE: And then I get into smoking cigars, so I build a cigar bar at the UFC headquarters now. We have— yeah, anyway, I’m all over the map, but when I get into something, I’m like totally into it.

Supplements, Biohacking, and Health Advice

KATIE MILLER: Are there any supplements you swear by?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, so again, the Gary Brecka thing. I was on a bunch of doctor’s pills for blood pressure and all. I’m on no pills. I’m only on supplements. Gary Brecka got me off all that stuff. And the thing that’s great about Brecka is he got me to a place where I realized that I could control my health, and not with pills, but with supplements and all these other things like red light and cold plunging and all the other stuff that he does— sauna. So I do that, yet I live a little too.

KATIE MILLER: Have you had a conversation with Bryan Johnson too, the other biohacker?

DANA WHITE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve met with him. We’ve talked at length. His is hardcore. Hardcore. Yeah. I’ve looked at what’s— it’s called The Blueprint, right? I think it’s called The Blueprint.

KATIE MILLER: What advice would you give to somebody much younger than you, say, 20s, 30s, 40s, about making similar overhauls to their health?

DANA WHITE: Listen, I’d say go guns a-blazing when you’re in your 20s and 30s. Have fun, because once you start getting up toward 50, the party’s over.

KATIE MILLER: Yeah.

DANA WHITE: Live your life. Live your life. I don’t think you have to be overly crazy about anything. Live and have fun and enjoy yourself. The day will come when you have to start really paying attention to your health.

KATIE MILLER: Do you eat anything differently when you travel versus when you’re at home?

DANA WHITE: That’s a good question. I’d say I eat worse when I’m on the road. I probably eat worse when I’m on the road. I eat much better when I’m home and I’m in my routine. I like routines, and I try to keep as close to my routine as I can when I’m traveling.

Rapid Fire: Conspiracy Theories, Music, and Fears

KATIE MILLER: What’s your favorite conspiracy theory?

DANA WHITE: The moon. The moon. I got a buddy, my buddy Skip. Every single dinner we eat at, he and one of my other guys, Hunter, fight over the moon landing the entire dinner. Every dinner.

KATIE MILLER: Did we land on the moon?

DANA WHITE: Hunter believes it happened. Skip believes it didn’t. And we got to listen to this s* every time we eat dinner. Crazy.

KATIE MILLER: What song always puts you in a good mood?

DANA WHITE: What song? Oh, wow. What song always puts me in a good mood? Another great question that I should have a quick answer to. I would say “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones.

KATIE MILLER: What’s your biggest fear?

DANA WHITE: My biggest fear? I really don’t have a lot of fears. I would say my only fear, if I had to say, is if something happened to one of my kids.

Dream Dinner Party

KATIE MILLER: We close every podcast with the same question. If you could host a dinner party with 3 people, dead or alive, who’s sitting at the table and what are you eating?

DANA WHITE: Who’s sitting at the table? Well, I say this all the time, and it fits. In this place, in this podcast, in this city. If you look at the people that hate on President Trump, right? I tell everybody this. If I took you to dinner with him for an hour.

KATIE MILLER: Oh, yeah.

DANA WHITE: You can be as far left and have whatever perceptions of him you have. It is impossible for you to get up from that dinner and walk away and say, “I hate that guy.” It’s impossible. And to the brilliance of Kid Rock, we did it with Bill Maher, and you’re talking not just on the Bill Maher side, but on the President Trump side. Hate each other. One of the greatest dinners that I have ever been to in my life.

KATIE MILLER: I’ve heard about this.

DANA WHITE: It was hilarious. And then to see those two sit next to each other and talk politics for an hour— things they agreed on, they actually agreed on things, and things they didn’t agree on. And then the president gave them an incredible tour of the White House. And I would do Trump every time. And you let him pick the menu. The dinners at the White House have been, the best dinners I’ve ever had.

KATIE MILLER: The food’s really good.

DANA WHITE: Yeah, very good.

KATIE MILLER: Thank you so much for doing this.

DANA WHITE: Thank you.

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