The UFC Leading The Way Is No Surprise

By: Kolby Castillo

Jason da Silva-USA TODAY Sports

In the words of the global fight star Conor McGregor, “Surprise, Surprise mother******”. UFC returns with the first major U.S. sport event today since the shutdown due to the pandemic. The mixed martial arts organization is not just making a statement by leading the way but they are trying to capture the world’s attention with the fight card they have lined up. This fight card is the most stacked I have ever seen. Action packed and filled with stars from top to bottom. If there was any card to showcase with all the eyes on them, this is definitely it. There are no other sports to compete for air time, in many ways this is the moment they wished to have. An opportunity to show the world the powerhouse UFC is and continue to push the ascension of the sport mixed martial arts. The normal fans will be tuning in but surely people who don’t typically watch the UFC will also be watching. I started with one of the UFC star’s famous quotes. Yet, what the UFC is doing is no surprise. The man leading the show is UFC president Dana White. Get to know him and there is no surprise why the UFC is the first to come back.

Dana White at 19 years old was working as a hotel valet. In many interviews about this moment, White spoke about how one day it dawned upon him that what he was doing was not making him happy. He was making enough cash with benefits but it’s not what he wanted to be doing. He walked out and just quit. That day he decided he was going to be in the fight business.

The story goes that White for nearly a decade worked every aspect of boxing. Boxing at the time was the fight business and mixed martial arts was unheard of. He was doing everything from training to managing fighters.  As it is known, many of Boston at that time was notoriously known to be under the control of the Irish Mob. Dana was visited by a couple guys that said he owed them $2,500. What would you do? Surely, any normal person would just try to get the money. Dana White if you don’t already know is not in the sense normal. He would leave everything he owned in Boston, hop on a plane, and fly to Las Vegas.

In a person who is successful, there are many defining moments. Moments that seem so absurd to the normal. These moments are outside of our comfort zones but in those zones are opportunities. Dana White would make decisions that most people would not make.

While in Las Vegas White would reacquaint himself with an old friend from high school, Lorenzo Fertitta. Lorenzo and his brother Frank at the time were running Vegas Casinos they owned. In Las Vegas it was where  White shifted from boxing to the sport of mixed martial arts. He started to manage fighters that were competing in the UFC. There was a dispute in negotiations and White had to find any leverage to win the best deal for his fighters. Through this search of leverage he found out that the UFC at the time was going to soon be out of business. White just at 19 and when he left Boston would make a quick decision with confidence it was the right one. He would call the Fertitta brothers and convince them to buy the UFC. In 2001, the Fertitta brothers formed the parent company Zuffa LLC and would purchase the UFC for $2 million. The person they chose to lead the show, Dana White.

White would go on to lead the company when many people doubted its success. I mean it was nearly shutdown and sold at a relatively low price for a reason. It would go through it’s ups and downs. Fast forward to 2016 the UFC sold for $4 billion. From 2001 it went from $2 million to $4 billion. It is no accident that the UFC has become what it is. Dana White made a lot of money in this deal, yet still here he is leading the way. Dana White once said, “The thing where I’ve always been lucky is, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”

Bring it back to present day, there is no surprise that the UFC leads the way. The organization has taken the personality of its president Dana White. Doing things most organizations would not do, leading the way, and betting on themselves. The floor is there’s and with the opportunity there I am sure they will make the most of it. Today could be another defining moment for Dana White and the UFC.