Dana White Shares His Darkest Moment, Timeline of UFC, Talks Trump & Jake Paul

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast FOLLOW HAPPY DAD: https://www.instagram.com/happydad FIND HAPPY DAD: https://www.happydad.com/find Dana White shares his dark moment around the sale of UFC, his relationship with Trump and addresses Jake Paul in an open and brutally honest discussion this week on The Pivot. The UFC President and Business Icon invites Ryan, Fred and Channing to UFC headquarters and doesn’t hold back as he talks tough topics with the guys. As Ryan asks Dana about his mindset during the business dealing of the UFC, Dana breaks down in a vulnerable moment saying how he shut down and went through a very dark time when the sale of the UFC was happening- “I locked myself in a hotel room off the radar and was really F’d up for a few days,” as he explains the moment. Dana goes on to share with Fred and Channing how when the UFC was a nothing brand yet that no one wanted to deal with, one person had his back and let him host events and that was Donald Trump. He discusses his long relationship with the former President and goes on to explain how we all have friends who we don’t always agree with on everything but it doesn’t change us from being their friend. Getting into the pay scale of fighters and often criticized business end of UFC, Dana explains his “eat what you kill”’motto which is something Channing is a big proponent of. One important message he gets across is that you don’t have to like everyone to do business as Dana explains his disdain for the likes of Tito Ortiz, Bob Arum and Jake Paul but doesn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of closing a deal. By the end of the conversation, Fred recognizes the respect level he has for Dana and explains how media misconceptions led him to have a pre-conceived notion about Dana but his openness and honesty changed that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:28Ryan Clark?

  Oh, there he is.

• 0:32Dana White?

  What's up, gang?

• 0:33Ryan Clark?

  What up, brother? How you doing, man? I ain't think I was gonna see you till next week.

• 0:37Dana White?

  How you been?

• 0:38Ryan Clark?

  Good, man, been doing well.

• 0:39Dana White?

  Been doing well, man.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Awesome, brother. What's up, boys, man?

• 0:42Fred Taylor?

  How's it going?

• 0:43Ryan Clark?

  I like those shoes, too. I wasn't expecting that.

• 0:45Dana White?

  They pretty hard.

• 0:46Ryan Clark?

  I wasn't expecting that.

• 0:47Dana White?

  Nike drip right here. You guys sponsored by Happy Dad?

• 0:49Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 0:50Dana White?

  I didn't know that.

• 0:51Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, that's why we, that's why we saw you in Nashville.

• 0:53Dana White?

  Okay.

• 0:54Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, we were out there with them. Sure, they're like you, man, marketing geniuses.

• 0:57Dana White?

  Those are my boys, man. Those are my boys. Great guys. Smart. And they can work. Those kids work hard, man.

• 1:04Ryan Clark?

  They do.

• 1:05Dana White?

  Hard. They, they been on the road from California to New Jersey, you know, going store to store promoting this shit. I did two days with them in Nashville.

• 1:17Ryan Clark?

  Nashville, yeah.

• 1:18Dana White?

  And I was like, this shit, I'm going home, man. Two days was enough for me.

• 1:21Ryan Clark?

  Well, man, welcome to the Pivot. Channing, Freddie T., obviously this is Dana White, USC president, man.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  You're a sneaker head. You're a sneaker head, Dana?

• 1:33Dana White?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah? Those pretty dope dunks right there.

• 1:36Dana White?

  I'll walk you guys through when we're done and show you just what I got here at the office.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  All right, I want to check it out.

• 1:41Ryan Clark?

  Hey, like, what do you got at the office?

• 1:42Speaker 03

  Well, you know, what's the story saying? Can't hire money?

• 1:44Ryan Clark?

  Cannot hire.

• 2:06Ryan Clark?

  You cannot hide it, but it's so, it's so crazy, man. Like, I've been a fan. I mean, I'm a Spike fan. I used to buy UFC Greatest Knockout DVDs, all of those things. And it's like, as much as the UFC has grown, I mean, other than this way, like, you have grown too. You know what I'm saying? And you have grown with it. But I think so many times, people see you sitting in that seat and strapping belts around people, and they think life has always been, been great for you. But growing up for you was a little different. Like, how have you used things from growing up in Connecticut to help you be truly the dude that's been the engine that's pushed the UFC to where it is?

• 2:45Dana White?

  Well, I was born in Connecticut, because that's where my grandmother lived. So, my mom went there to have, to have me. But we, we, we lived in Boston.

• 2:52Ryan Clark?

  Okay.

• 2:53Dana White?

  And then moved to Vegas when I was in like, 5th grade. You know, I come from a single mom who, who, who worked hard and didn't have a lot of money.

• 3:01Dana White?

  And, uh, you know, um, the, the, the one thing that was very lucky for me is, I'm sure you guys run into this all the time with, with young people. If you ask them, let's say they're in college, and you ask them, uh, you know, "What's your major?" They're like, "Well, I'm, I'm majoring in political science, but I think I'm gonna switch to this." They went to college because everybody told them, "If you didn't go to college, you wouldn't amount to anything."

• 3:24Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Dana White?

  So, they get to college, and they don't know what the hell they want to do. And, and, and the key to life is finding out who you are, and what it is you love to do, and what it is you want to do for the rest of your life. And where I was very lucky is I always knew, you know? And I always knew I wanted to be in the fight business. And, you know, back then, you know, you're talking the mid 80s. People thought that was the dumbest shit they ever heard. You know, that I wanted to be in the fight business. "How you gonna make money doing that? How you gonna, you know?" And, uh, I didn't care. It was what I wanted to do, and it was what I was passionate about. So, I spent, you know, my whole young life working toward that. You know, from the time I was 19 years old to today.

• 4:02Ryan Clark?

  I saw you dropped out of college twice.

• 4:05Dana White?

  Yeah.

• 4:05Ryan Clark?

  What, what happened?

• 4:07Dana White?

  Yeah, I got kicked out of high school a bunch of times, uh, and, and had to go to different schools. I was just never a school guy. You know, I, I, I, not that I didn't want to learn, and I didn't want to be successful, it's just, school wasn't for me. So, even when, um...

• 4:25Dana White?

  You know, I started to get involved in, in my own business and doing my own thing. You know, I did, I went to the bookstore and I bought books on marketing. I bought books on finance, I bought books on, uh, PR. I just, I just read books and, and, and listened to, uh, you know, uh, people speak and, and stuff like that. That, that was how I learned. And it was a lot more fun than going to school. Self-taught. Exactly. Self-taught, man.

• 4:51Ryan Clark?

  And so like even, even with that, you took over, like you guys, you and, you and the Petita family, you took over a business that didn't necessarily have a direction.

• 5:00Dana White?

  The brand was, was, you know, was horrible. The brand, uh, you know, was called human cockfighting. It was illegal in many states. Wasn't sanctioned by the athletic commissions and, uh, you know, we, uh, we saw what we thought it could be if it was done the right way, marketed the right way. Run toward regulation, get it regulated, should be a real sport. These are real athletes. I mean, a- a- and when you looked at it, you have guys that could punch, kick, wrestle, do submissions, yet boxing, uh, kickboxing, wrestling, judo, and all those things were legal and actually Olympic sports.

• 5:45Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 5:45Dana White?

  Why couldn't this be something, you know, so? That, that was how we looked at it. The other thing that I always thought is that this could be a global sport and that this would work all over the world because no matter what color you were, what language you spoke, what part of the world you were from, we're all human beings, man, and we like fighting.

• 6:02Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, that, that's, hey, that's real talk.

• 6:04Fred Taylor?

  You said it was a, a, a, a trash brand. I read something somewhere, you bought it in 2001 for 2 million.

• 6:10Dana White?

  Right.

• 6:11Fred Taylor?

  And you had to, uh, get back the UFC.com website from a company, User Friendly Computers?

• 6:17Dana White?

  That's acceptable, you know, that's right. Yeah, so this guy owned UC, uh, User Friendly Computers. And, uh, this, this was my big first business mistake. So I called him up and we want to buy, you know, the, the, the dot com from him. And, uh, I, I don't remember the number, but he wanted something like, like, uh, $20,000.

• 6:43Dana White?

  And I motherfucked him up and down, you piece of shit. Twenty thousand, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah. He's like, fuck you. He hangs up the phone. So we battled for years, but the UFC just starts to go like this. So we end up paying like, you know, crazy number, 150, 200,000 dollars for the thing eventually. When I should have took it for 20,000 dollars in the beginning, yeah.

• 7:05Ryan Clark?

  You know, you talk about that business move not necessarily being, you know, your smartest or the dumbest that you've made, but everything you've done since has seemed to work. Like, it really, it really has.

• 7:16Dana White?

  It was all downhill after.

• 7:17Ryan Clark?

  I know, you know what I'm saying, like, after user-friendly computers. What was it that made you think that this could be this big? Because it's overtaking boxing. It's the number one combat sport. And honestly, this is not saying the number one combat sport. The number one promotion in the world.

• 7:35Dana White?

  It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world, too. And, you know, when we sold, we sold for 4.025 billion, which was the biggest number anything had sold for in sports.

• 7:45Ryan Clark?

  See, Freddie T, that's how you can buy a lot of them shoes. He said that.

• 7:50Dana White?

  And since then, and everybody, when we sold, everybody was talking about how Ari overpaid for it and what a stupid move, blah, blah, blah. And then the thing's just gone like this since then, too. So we always believed that this thing could be big if we did it the right way and it was done the right way. The question is always about the timing. Is the timing right? And the reality is the timing couldn't have been better. Because technology has really been our friend. And I'm older than everybody in this room, but when... I grew up, and a couple of you might relate to this. We had Channel 3, Channel 5, Channel 8, and Channel 13, right? Then cable came, and you have like 30 channels on cable.

• 8:34Dana White?

  Then satellite came, etc., etc., etc. Now there's a million channels, including streaming. All these streaming services are starting to happen, which was something that we dreamed about years ago. Because if you think about what my philosophy is, that this works everywhere, everybody gets it, everybody likes it. How many people are there in the world? Seven and a half, eight billion people in the world? Right? What's my ceiling? Right. What's stopping you? The more you continue to grow the sport, and the more people you get to it, and you've been to a live event, right? Yes. There's nothing better on TV than football. Football's the best fucking sport in the world to watch on TV.

• 9:18Dana White?

  It's fun, it's exciting, you don't even have to be a fan of the teams, and you love football. Going to a football game live, it's not as exciting, it's not as good of an experience as watching it on TV, in my opinion. Basketball, I'm a big Celtics fan, we just swept, you know, Brooklyn, I couldn't be happier. Basketball's one of those sports, you know, if you've got nothing to do, you watch the whole game. But really, tune in for the last seven minutes of the game, and watch the last seven minutes. But fucking live, and if you sit on the court, it's bad. It's fun as hell to go to a live basketball game, right? Very energetic. Especially at the guard.

• 9:58Dana White?

  These dudes are fucking huge, running, slamming, you know, great passes, it's so much fun. So I could go on and on. The UFC is awesome on TV. It's a great television product, whether you're at home with your friends, or if you're watching it in a bar, it's great. But when you go live, there's nothing like a UFC event live. And as we continue to travel this thing around the world, and people come and experience that live event, nobody walks out of a live event and goes, "Yeah, I'm never coming to one of these again." You know what I mean? It's the exact opposite. You become addicted. So as we continue to move around, and now that all this COVID bullshit's going away, and we can actually start going back into other countries and putting on events. And now they're streaming.

• 10:42Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Dana White?

  So, no matter where in the world we are, if I wanted to cut a TV deal, uh, you know, if I had a TV deal in the United States and I wanted this to air in Germany, in France, in England, in Spain, I'd have to cut a million different TV deals. Now I only have to cut one. And not only do you only cut one, we can all watch it at the same time on the same channel. And I believe that in the next five to seven to eight years, there's gonna be a Channel 3, a Channel 5, a Channel 8, and Channel 13 like there were. You know, the big ABC, NBC, CBS when we were growing up globally.

• 11:16Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 11:17Dana White?

  I don't know if it's gonna be Amazon, YouTube, ESPN, Disney. I don't know who it's gonna be, but there will be, you know, four or five big players globally.

• 11:26Channing Crowder?

  And, and Dana, you, you say it and it's so smooth when it comes off, but you got kicked out of high school. You don't have a college degree. You took a $2 million business into a $4 billion business.

• 11:39Ryan Clark?

  Shane, this show is very bad for parents. The parents at our home like, listen, you gotta get good grades. You, you gotta stay in school. You gotta go to college, get a scholarship. They're like, man, shit, Dana White, rich as hell.

• 11:49Dana White?

  How, how do you think I have to explain that to my kid when I tell them they have to go to school?

• 11:53Channing Crowder?

  But that process, you even said that there were states that you couldn't even fight in. They wouldn't let you fight in. But now you're worldwide, like that process of 2 million to 4 billion, how hard was that?

• 12:03Dana White?

  Yeah, it was hard. It, it was hard, yet at the same time, it was awesome. It, it, we, we had a blast. I did it with people that I love. I mean, we were just talking about this the other day. One, one of the guys that works for me here worked for Major League Soccer and he worked for the NFL. He said, you know what's so crazy about this place? When you walk around this building, people are like, yeah, I've been here for eight years. I've been here for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. My staff that works here has been here forever. They're, they, he was telling me that in sports in general, there's like a three-year window where people just keep churning through the place. We built something special here and we all love what we do and it's it's it's fun.

• 12:42Dana White?

  We're like a a a big family here and uh it's why when COVID hit, I was so adamant about going through COVID and not laying off any of my people and we'd figure it out and we all stuck together and then when it was time to work, when I did figure it out, and I'm sure, I'm not saying everybody, there weren't some people that were scared and wondering what was, they all went to war with me, man. We all went out and we and we did it. And uh I I think since that's happened, we've become even closer and uh you know, here as a a as a team and uh we all love what we do. So, yes, it was hard, um but yet at the same time, you know, like they always say, it it's really all about the journey and we've had a really incredible journey.

• 13:26Ryan Clark?

  Dan, you mentioned COVID though and like you guys were the sport that kept us going. I mean, you know, Khamzat Chamaya became a star during during COVID. You had, you were able to have championship fights, you had you had fight nights and you did all of these things and you moved around and and and found ways to do it when everyone else was making excuses. What was that process like for you? Because we see the final product, right? All I know is you're fighting in Dubai, DC's flying over there to to to to do, you know, the commentary and it seems like it was a very easy process because of what we are getting. What was that process like to get yourself in a place to where you could continue to have events when everybody else in the world was shutting down?

• 14:06Dana White?

  I I have this philosophy that that nothing is impossible. Never tell me no, never say we can't. And uh it just, if this thing was as bad as they were saying it was at the time, we're all dead anyway, man. You know what I mean? What are we gonna go and hide in our houses and possibly die? Not me.

• 15:01Dana White?

  And listen, as Americans, you have the opportunity to do whatever you want to hide in your house, hide in your house. It's just, I'm not built that way.

• 15:09Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 15:09Dana White?

  You know, and I knew in Abu Dhabi, they were testing people. I'm like, well, if they're testing people, why can't we test people? And then you start thinking, well, let's, let's, I was like, let's build a lab. Let's get some scientists, whatever, I don't know, get people who know anything about this shit, and let's build a lab here. We'll build a lab and we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see if we can do our own testing and, you know, there has to be a way around this. Guys, it's like this whole political bullshit that went on during that time with COVID, right?

• 15:43Dana White?

  It's almost like, not only were we trying, we, whoever these, whoever they are, trying to separate us, you know, the country, trying to make us weak, trying to make us, and my thing is always, this is America, man. Americans don't roll over for anything. We get out and we fight and we find a way to win and, and, and to progress and to, and to get through things like this. And, and then once I started hearing shit about laying off, you know, thirty something percent of my staff, I'm like, I'm not laying off one, one of my people. It's not happening. So, listen, we're either all gonna go down together and try to figure this thing out, or, or we're not.

• 16:26Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 16:27Dana White?

  Right?

• 16:28Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Dana White?

  What I'm not gonna do is hide in my house from a virus.

• 16:31Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 16:31Dana White?

  That's not gonna happen.

• 16:33Fred Taylor?

  So you, you believe in philosophy over fate? I've been, I had to do a lot of research on this, because I read somewhere, again, that you're an atheist. Do you ever have those come to Jesus moments though? Like if a turbulent flight or anything like that?

• 16:51Dana White?

  Well, no, but I'm not gonna lie, there were a few times through this thing, it was, when you talk about how hard it was to build this business, nothing was harder than going through COVID. You know, I'm being attacked by everybody. I'm the devil. I care about money more than people and all this other bullshit rhetoric that they want to put on you because they don't like that you're trying, you know? And, you know, just had to battle through that, just live in my own bubble here. But sometimes, you know, we'd hit so many dead ends and so many walls. There's a couple of times I'm like, "What the [__] are you doing? What are you doing?" You know? "What are you doing? Am I doing the right thing?" And I'd say, "Yeah, I'm doing the right thing." Let's go.

• 17:36Channing Crowder?

  Did Goodell or Stern, any other leagues? You talk to anybody that runs the other leagues when they saw it? When you started barreling through and going, like you said? And then when they saw it working, did anybody reach out to you?

• 17:51Dana White?

  Yeah, there were several teams that did reach out to us, leagues, especially when we set up in Abu Dhabi. And, you know, at the time, President Trump put me and a bunch of the other guys in sports on a panel. And we would get on a call every week with the President and walk through how we would do this. And I, God, I don't even know if I should talk about this publicly, but...

• 18:21Channing Crowder?

  You're good.

• 18:22Dana White?

  Do it, do it!

• 18:23Channing Crowder?

  This is what we do!

• 18:25Dana White?

  I've never talked about this before. So we were on a call with the President one time. And I remember I was listening to everybody get on there and talk. And I was like, "These guys are all full of shit. None of these guys are gonna [__] and roll or really wanna do what they're saying they're gonna do, except for one." And when we hung up the phone, he [__] texted me and said, "Why [__] didn't you talk on that call? There's [__] questions that need to be [__] asked. You didn't ask any [__] questions. You didn't do this berating me on this text." Three guesses who it was. One of the sports guys.

• 19:07Channing Crowder?

  Oh, sports guys.

• 19:08Dana White?

  One of the other sports guys who was also going. And he talked, but felt like, he's like, "Why didn't you [__] talk?"

• 19:15Channing Crowder?

  Goodell?

• 19:15Dana White?

  And I didn't talk because I felt like everybody was full of shit, except for him.

• 19:18Channing Crowder?

  Roger was still going, though. He just did it a different way.

• 19:23Dana White?

  Vince McMahon.

• 19:24Ryan Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:26Dana White?

  Vince McMahon starts texting me and basically berating me. After the call, like, "Why didn't you talk? Why didn't you, why didn't you back up what I was saying? And we gotta go through this and all this other shit." And I was like, "'Cause I think everybody's full of shit, that's why." Except for you.

• 19:43Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 19:44Dana White?

  You're definitely not full of shit, Vince, you know? Vince is a killer. And Vince was putting on his events down in Florida at the time, too. So...

• 19:53Ryan Clark?

  When, when you think about, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned Vince and obviously, you know, what you do, it's, it's become, like, you, you found a way to make stars in a sport that is very hard to make stars in because one second changes a career.

• 20:08Dana White?

  Right.

• 20:08Ryan Clark?

  You know, you, you can have, you can be Anderson Silva and run into Chris Weidman and all of these things that you've built go away with a dang backhand, you know? And so, to be able to, to, to build these stars and, and have the, the McGregor's and, and the John Jones and Chuck Liddell was the guy that made me love the sport. How do you handle that from a marketing standpoint to make sure whenever that guy's fall, whenever that guy falls, you have someone else that could carry the mantle? Or is that even important to you? Does the UFC just stand because of the, the sport?

• 20:45Dana White?

  No, I mean, what, what happens now is the brand has become so powerful that when you have the brand plus a star, it just makes the whole thing so much bigger. You, you know what's crazy is we, we have these guys, I mean, as you look on the board behind you, this is the war room we're in now, these are all the top 15 in the world in every weight class.

• 21:04Ryan Clark?

  Yep.

• 21:05Dana White?

  They're behind you, right? And what starts to happen is, when, when Hamzat fought in, in Abu Dhabi and he gets done, he's like, "I wanna fight next week, too."

• 21:16Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Dana White?

  So, when I see moments like that and I see these things, I immediately jump on them. That's one of my things that I'm actually good at, is I see these things in people, you know, and when the moment hits, I jump on it. I go to the matchmakers and I said, "Let's make him fight again next week, let's, let's do it." And then they get all pissed off and argue with me and why he can't fight next week, but we get it done. He comes out of that thing and then you look at the last fight...

• 21:44Ryan Clark?

  Fights give a burn, it's friggin' war.

• 21:45Dana White?

  Insane, right? I mean, huge star.

• 21:49Dana White?

  And going through COVID, like we were just talking about that, our fan base grew 46%. When we went through COVID, 46%, imagine that, right? When other people weren't playing, we grew 46%. So that's the other thing that I look at when some of these other guys are soft.

• 22:09Ryan Clark?

  You looking for the right word?

• 22:10Dana White?

  Yeah, are soft.

• 22:11Ryan Clark?

  I like it.

• 22:13Dana White?

  I'll run them right over. I'll run them over. I love it. You don't want to play? Don't play. NBA, you don't want to go on TV? Stay off TV. NFL, you don't want to go on TV? Beautiful. I'll go on TV. We'll be the only guys during the pandemic on TV. And think about this, and it's not just me, it's everybody in this room.

• 22:35Dana White?

  We all real, you guys are all sports guys, but we realized how important sports really are. When it was gone.

• 22:42Ryan Clark?

  Yep.

• 22:42Dana White?

  I would have watched golf every day. That's how much I was Jones and I hate golf. I would have watched golf every day if it was on, you know?

• 22:52Dana White?

  People were watching the beanbag. What's that shit?

• 22:56Ryan Clark?

  Corn, corn.

• 22:56Dana White?

  Cornhole. Cornhole was pulling numbers during COVID. You know what I mean?

• 23:01Ryan Clark?

  You want any, you want any piece of a sport? Just something you can win or lose. Yeah, you mentioned pushing through and kind of the call, you know, that you guys had. I was here for McGregor, Poirier too. President Trump walks in and there was only one bigger ovation or one bigger moment when somebody walked out and that was when Connor walked out.

• 23:24Dana White?

  I'm telling you the Trump moment in New York, I have never seen anything like that in my life. Everybody was on their chairs with their phones and it was insane.

• 23:36Ryan Clark?

  Do you ever get pushback though from that relationship, especially during COVID?

• 23:40Dana White?

  Oh, I don't give a shit. That guy's been a friend of mine for 20 years. He's one of the most stand up, solid dudes that I've ever met in my life. If he gives you his word, done.

• 23:53Dana White?

  I'm gonna tell you a story off camera about him when we're done.

• 23:56Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, you can get the presidential pivot right now.

• 24:01Dana White?

  You'll see why after, but, um, yeah, no, listen, that guy's my friend, man. It's like, uh, we've been friends for a long time and, and nobody wants to get dragged out into the political arena. It's just, it's all fucking bullshit and, you know what I mean? It's all just a bunch of bullshit. And when, when, when he called me, this, this was when he was first gonna run. And this is what he said to me, and let me explain this to you too. So when we were talking about early on, when we, when we first got started in this business and, um,

• 24:34Dana White?

  this, this, this brand was so bad that venues didn't even want us, you know? These arenas didn't want us at there. They're like, whoa, we, we don't want this stuff at our arena. So we had a hard time finding venues and, uh, Trump literally called us. Now remember this, think about this, where the Trump brand was here, UFC brand was down here. Come to my place, you know, do the event here, we'll have you at the Trump Taj Mahal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get there.

• 25:04Dana White?

  Greatest setup for us, he did this whole thing for us, showed up to the first fight and was there till the last fight. Both times we went there.

• 25:14Dana White?

  Everything that happened to me in my career from there on out, he would pick up the phone and congratulate me or send something. Always been a solid guy with me. So then he, uh, he calls me and says, I'm running for president. Now, listen, if you don't want to do this, I completely understand, but I would be honored

• 25:35Dana White?

  if you would speak at the National Republican Convention for me. Everybody told me not to do it, everybody. And I'm like, this guy, all the things that he's done for me, I'm gonna tell him no? Yeah, no, that's not me.

• 25:50Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 25:51Dana White?

  I went up and I told the people the truth. Who he is. What he's done for me. The type of person he's been. You know? And people who are close to him like that, like Tyson too. Tyson spoke up for him because he's always been good to Tyson. He's always been, you know.

• 26:08Channing Crowder?

  Why did people tell you not to do it? Like what was their justification of telling you not to do it?

• 26:12Dana White?

  Because he wasn't gonna win. There's no way he was gonna become the President of the United States and to get out there and speak publicly, politically. You know, it's, it's almost like the Jordan thing, you know? When, when they were talking about Jordan. I'm sure you guys watched the Jordan.

• 26:25Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Dana White?

  Incredible.

• 26:27Channing Crowder?

  I watched it twelve times.

• 26:29Dana White?

  Reminded us all why we fucking love Michael Jordan, right? So the Jordan thing, Jordan, you know, I, I, I can't remember the, the exact scenario, but there was a black, a black, uh, guy running for Democrat in North Carolina or something like that. And they wanted Jordan to go out there and speak and he's like, Republicans buy shoes too. You know? And I think that's everybody's stance, that everybody's little, liberals, you know, watch the UFC too. So you wanna have your fan base as big as, as you could possibly have. But for me, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm very loyal and, uh, that guy was good to me. There would be no UFC early on, you know, because we had trouble getting venues. He helped us and, and you know, he helped take us to another level and

• 27:15Dana White?

  at a time when he didn't have to and a time when his brand was powerful and ours was nothing.

• 27:19Fred Taylor?

  So you, you speak about the loyalty there, which we respect. I respect being loyal to your friends and people that have supported you. Is there any, is there anything or any moment where he's done anything where you disagreed with?

• 27:34Dana White?

  I have lots of friends that do things that I don't absolutely agree with all the time. You know what I mean? It doesn't make me not be their friends anymore.

• 27:41Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 27:42Dana White?

  You know what I mean? And some of the things that are said about Trump and one, I'll racist.

• 27:48Dana White?

  He's not a racist. I can tell you that. I've been around the guy for 20 years. And I could tell you a thousand stories that you don't want to hear, but um, you know, one of the things that he said to me, he says, you know, it's hilarious. I've owned hotels and casinos my whole life. People from all over the world have worked for me. Never been called a racist till I became the president of the United States. And I've never seen anything or heard anything come out of his mouth in all the time that I've known him that would make me say he was. Do I love every, do I agree with everything that he, that he does and says? No. Um, are we 100% politically aligned? No.

• 28:29Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 28:29Dana White?

  Um, but you never will be with any president of the United States. You're never going to be 100. And then when you talk about him being a friend, my friends do things that I, that I don't agree with sometimes, you know, but doesn't make me not be their friends anymore. Um, it's just different at a level when you have somebody that's as polarizing as, as Trump is.

• 28:49Fred Taylor?

  Take it down a notch and pivot to, to Joe, one of your other good friends. He made some controversial comments.

• 28:55Dana White?

  Joe Rogan? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:56Fred Taylor?

  He made some other comments and um, he, he owned up to, you know, those things that were showed on the video. What was that moment like for you?

• 29:06Dana White?

  Another guy that I've known for a very long time. And uh, yeah, and, and, and the other thing is too, when Joe, when Joe said it, you have to put it into context of what he said.

• 29:17Fred Taylor?

  Always.

• 29:18Dana White?

  He wasn't dropping it. He was saying, he was explaining what other people had said, but he was saying the word. Apologized for it over and over again. And it's, it's like the Kevin Hart thing. Whom I respect very much for what he did, you know, uh, you know, he said a homophobic slur 10, 15 years ago. Apologized for it, you know, did everything the right way like you should, then goes to host the Oscars. And they're like, yeah, well, you're going to have to publicly apologize for this again. And he's like, no, fuck you. I apologized for that 15 years ago and, and I learned and I'm a different person now.

• 30:01Dana White?

  So I'm not going to apologize for it again. I mean, you, you guys know the world we live in right now and if you let the media or these other people get in your head and do those kinds of things to you.

• 30:14Dana White?

  That's why, you know, my press conferences and shit, I don't play with these guys. I don't, I, I, I don't play these, these, these little.

• 30:22Dana White?

  I don't play these games with these guys that, that they try to play with us. So.

• 30:29Dana White?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a tricky world we live in these days.

• 30:32Fred Taylor?

  You're a real Bostonian at heart. I was up there for a few years with the Pats when I played there. And, uh, crazy, crazy people. Say you're a big Celtics fan. I heard you were a big Pats fan.

• 30:43Dana White?

  Yup, yup.

• 30:44Fred Taylor?

  Uh, relationship with Tom Brady.

• 30:46Dana White?

  Yup.

• 30:47Fred Taylor?

  I mean.

• 30:48Channing Crowder?

  Where you at now, right?

• 30:50Fred Taylor?

  Right. I just, uh, man, the, the Bostonian, man, you people, they don't give a.

• 30:56Dana White?

  That's true. That is very true. Um. Yeah, Boston is a, it's, it's a lot different now than when I grew up there, but it's, it's a crazy place and, uh. But good, solid people come out of Boston, man. And, and, uh, you know, love sports and, you know, it's.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 31:47Dana White?

  It's, yeah, it's a different world. I've been lucky that I've, that I've had both. I've had East Coast and West Coast, you know, to be able to grow up in both places has been a, a, a a really good thing for me. So I've been very lucky.

• 32:01Channing Crowder?

  I want to go back to some of like your friends and they have their, their past and they do what they do and, you know, so y'all been friends for 20 years, 30 years, y'all been friends and y'all have y'all businesses. What about your fighters? Like, you talking about, like, you, you have a top fighter, and he, you know, now I don't say makes the UFC, but he's the face of the UFC.

• 32:19Dana White?

  Yup.

• 32:20Channing Crowder?

  Can you hate, can you dislike a fighter, can you dislike the face of the UFC?

• 32:25Fred Taylor?

  You must have never watched, you must have never watched any of his interviews, bro.

• 32:28Channing Crowder?

  And still, but, but, and still respect that he's that guy?

• 32:32Dana White?

  Hundred percent. I mean, I, I'd say the biggest one ever was me and Tito Ortiz. We hated each other. And Tito fought here for many years with us hating each other.

• 32:40Channing Crowder?

  Like, hating, like, what, like, y'all, y'all, y'all-

• 32:42Dana White?

  Fucking hate each other.

• 32:43Channing Crowder?

  Y'all would walk past and hardwinds, "Fuck you."

• 32:46Dana White?

  Hundred percent. He, he, he wore a shirt up on stage that said, "Dana is my bitch." At one of the weigh-ins. And I always talk about, when we do interviews, I always make sure I let everybody know that he's one of the dumbest motherfuckers that you will ever meet. He's, he's the dumbest human being on planet Earth. I let everybody know that. And, uh, yeah, we, he and I don't hold back.

• 33:07Channing Crowder?

  But still, but you still respected him for his art?

• 33:10Dana White?

  He's a bad dude.

• 33:11Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Dana White?

  One hundred percent.

• 33:13Fred Taylor?

  In, in the midst of that, though, you're a marketing guru, right? Promotional guru. You mentioned what the company, that sells.

• 33:21Dana White?

  Yeah, it's true. It's, it's definitely true that the feud between me, but it sells because it's real. You know, it, it isn't the WWE shit, you know, and, and, and this happens a lot here, you know? Think about this. I have, I have seven hundred and fifty alpha males and females that I oversee, and, you know, and, and that doesn't include my three hundred and fifty employees. So, um, yeah, this is a business where I deal with the baddest human beings on planet Earth, you know? Including women that will beat the shit out of men, you know what I mean? So, we, it's, it's, it's, it's an interesting dynamic here, different than any other business anywhere in the world.

• 34:05Channing Crowder?

  Is that why you so goddamn big? Like your forearm the size of my thigh like do you work out in case you gotta whip somebody's ass?

• 34:13Dana White?

  Calling me big and you're not.

• 34:15Channing Crowder?

  But you just like you.

• 34:16Dana White?

  Yeah, he's all up.

• 34:16Channing Crowder?

  I know you 50 plus, I will put the number out. And like, are you ready, are you ready to, you're, you're, you're the president of UFC, but are you ready to fight?

• 34:26Dana White?

  Listen, man, I'm at an age where I fight to get on the treadmill every day, let alone fuck around with any of these people, man, you know what I mean? No, I don't want to fight any of these people.

• 34:36Channing Crowder?

  But you ain't gonna turn it down.

• 34:37Dana White?

  Well, no, I'm not gonna, well, I'm not gonna fight anybody, let's just put it that way. The thing is, that's cool about this sport too, is, is our athletes are, are unique in so many ways, and, and it's what makes these people so special. First of all, if you look at the top, the top five across the board in every weight class, to get there is almost impossible. It's almost impossible to get there. Almost nobody does it. And to become a world champion? Next to nobody gets there and does it.

• 35:08Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 35:10Dana White?

  And these people don't care about the real world and how it works. They don't want to go work and sit in a cubicle every day. They won't sit in bumper to bumper traffic and, you know, to a job and all this shit, they're just wired differently. It's why I knew, when the shit hit the fan, and I was gonna go through COVID, I knew they'd go. I knew they'd go. I, I, I knew they would. And, and what's crazy is, no matter what part of the world you're from, no matter what color you are, no matter what language you speak, it's, it's almost like we're all aligned here, you know what I mean?

• 35:49Dana White?

  Like the NBA, you, you had guys that wouldn't play, guys that wouldn't do this, guys that wouldn't do that, guys that had to get vaccinated immediately, Kyrie who wouldn't get vaccinated. My, my thing was, here.

• 36:04Dana White?

  And again, this is all about us being Americans. And this is why I want everybody to try to please remember, we're Americans, all of us. And then what color you are, whatever, what religion you are, whatever the thing is. And this is a free country. Kyrie doesn't want to get vaccinated? Kyrie shouldn't get vaccinated? That's up to him. His fucking body, it's his life. In this country, he gets to make that choice. And it started to get scary there for a minute where this whole thing was like, you couldn't go to dinner unless you put this thing, you couldn't go to work, you couldn't be a part of society? We didn't do that here. If you felt safe getting vaccinated, then you got vaccinated. If you didn't feel safe getting vaccinated, then don't get vaccinated.

• 36:49Dana White?

  That's the way this country works, man. So, I, we were all aligned here with that stuff. There was none of that, there was none of that bullshit going on here. And for all the craziness with Kyrie, I fucking respect the fact that he stood up for himself and did that. In a league where standing up for yourself wasn't, wasn't the smart thing to do.

• 37:12Ryan Clark?

  Right, that's the question I have for you though. You talk about standing up for yourself and, you know, you look at, you look at some of the champions, right? You have Francis, who, you know, you guys were talking about different things with contracts. Nathan Diaz is on his last fight. John Jones, you know, a dude who, at least to me, was the greatest champion we'd had. Like, we've, like, barely seen him in trouble, other than maybe, you know, against the Mauler. When you deal with these dudes and you're trying to make these fights, you know, you kind of talked about the politics thing as it opposes, you know, as it goes to like government. Are there politics in what you do? Or are you like, I'm trying to make the best fight, I'm trying to get the best champion, I'm trying to put the best product out for those people who pay money to see.

• 37:54Dana White?

  You just nailed it. There's no secrets here, there's no, you know, there's no politics. The best fight the best here. You know what I mean? One of the big problems with boxing has been, you couldn't get the best to fight the best. You know? Riddick Bowe threw his belt in the garbage so that he didn't have to defend it against Lennox Lewis. And so many other things that have happened in the past, where we didn't get to see the great fights we wanted to, or we saw them way too late. Here, the best always fight the best. And there's no secret to that here. There's no, this didn't just pop up yesterday. This has been the, the, the, the way we run this business for 20 years. And, um, you know, there's always gonna be head butting.

• 38:38Dana White?

  There always gonna be, "Do you make enough money?"

• 38:41Ryan Clark?

  No, I absolutely not.

• 38:43Channing Crowder?

  Absolutely not.

• 38:43Dana White?

  I, I want you to meet the guy that goes, "Oh, I'm good. I make plenty of money. I don't need, I don't need another dime." You're never gonna meet that guy. That's never gonna happen. Everybody wants more money. And, uh, the, one of the big problems with boxing too, is that all those guys are overpaid. And every time they put on a fight, it's a going out of business sale. You know what I mean? We're just trying to get as much money as we can from you guys and then we're out of here. And we'll see you in three years. You can't build a league like that. You can't build a sport. You can't have 750 fighters, under contract, making money, feeding their families every year with that kind of mentality. It doesn't work. You have to run a business.

• 39:26Channing Crowder?

  But what's the pay scale of a fighter? Like what, the, the judgment of, like you say, the boxers are over, overpaid. Megan's $70 million to fight, whatever it is, $20 million, whatever it is.

• 39:35Dana White?

  Yep.

• 39:36Channing Crowder?

  So how do you evaluate what your fighters are worth in that fight?

• 39:40Dana White?

  Yep, so what we did is, we built a business model where they share. If you're the champion, you share in the pay-per-view revenue. If you're the guy headlining the card, or, there's been some special occasions where, we know, we know you're bringing in the money too, that you're, you're a big draw. So you two get to share in the pay-per-view revenue. You eat what you kill. You know what I mean?

• 40:01Ryan Clark?

  I say that all the time.

• 40:02Dana White?

  And, and, and, and the truth is, you get some of these guys that, you know, you can walk in and say, "I want $30 million." Okay? Based on what? I do too. Give me $30 million. You want $30 million, right? We all want $30. Based on what? If, if, if, if you look at, and you're never gonna have the guys on the other side.

• 40:27Dana White?

  Worrying about the business of the sport. Because it's always, this isn't a team sport. Right. Right? Give me me. You're not in a situation where Tom Brady says, "I know I'm the best quarterback ever." Right?

• 40:46Dana White?

  "So I should be getting paid, you know, millions and millions of dollars. But I'm gonna take less money because I want to build a winning team." You know? "I can't do everything myself. I need guys that can catch the fucking ball. I need guys who can block me to make sure I don't get fucking murdered. I need a good defensive line to hold it. So let's build a big team. I'll take less money." Very rarely does that happen in sports. But in this sport here, me. It's about me. Yeah. I'm the biggest fucking star here. I knocked out 30 people. I did this, I did that. I want as much money as I can get. And I really don't give a shit about anybody else, including you, the boss that, you know, that runs the business. Right. I don't care about this whole business. It's about me.

• 41:30Dana White?

  So you have to maintain some sort of control over that type of stuff to run a real business. Because at the end of the day, the reason this business has been this rocket ship of success is because not only have we built a solid business where, you know, these fighters are all making lots of money and they're doing well. Even guys that are journeymen are making, you know, we got guys. If we, and the other thing that drives the media fucking crazy, and a lot of the fans too, is we don't tell people what these guys get paid. So I always tell these fighters and I tell the media, "Ask them what they get paid." They can tell you what they make. I could tell you what each guy has made since the day he fought here, total since they've been here. I could give you all those numbers.

• 42:13Dana White?

  I could have them in five minutes. You don't ever hear any of the fighters telling you what they get paid. Right. Ever. Because they don't want you to know either. Yeah. You know? And you guys know, you guys come from this fucking world. Soon as that number comes out in the paper, what you get paid.

• 42:29Ryan Clark?

  Looking at your pockets, no.

• 42:30Dana White?

  You know exactly what happens. You start getting relatives and friends and shit you never knew you had and everybody's coming, you know, trying to borrow money from you and most of them aren't paying you back because you're rich.

• 42:42Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:42Dana White?

  You got the money, you don't need me to pay you back. Yeah, no, that's real.

• 42:45Ryan Clark?

  Nah, that's real.

• 42:46Dana White?

  It's up to everyone.

• 42:47Ryan Clark?

  Nah, that's real.

• 42:48Dana White?

  Hundred percent.

• 42:48Ryan Clark?

  Does it bother you when people from the outside, like the Paul brothers and different people, are always trying to point to your pay scale because they figured out a way to fool the world into thinking that they're legitimate fighters?

• 43:03Dana White?

  Well, no. And here's the thing, it's what I always say. If you don't like what I'm doing, you don't like the way I'm doing it, go out and raise some money. I did. And start your own.

• 43:15Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Dana White?

  Pay them whatever you want to pay them. That's what that fucking clown from Triller was saying. The guy that runs Triller, he came out with a statement, "I pay my ushers more than he pays his fighters." And how much money that guy's lost in the last two, three years?

• 43:33Dana White?

  Crazy money. What the are you bragging about? You gotta be the dumbest, most crooked businessman of all time and you're bragging about it?

• 43:45Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 44:14Ryan Clark?

  Yes.

• 44:16Dana White?

  But knock yourself out. Pay the ushers whatever you want, you fucking idiot. Right? I mean, when you put this stuff in context and talk about it. We've built one of the most successful sports leagues of all time in 20 years. People actually want to invest money into this thing, which makes the sport grow, which makes it more opportunities for more people, not just the fighters, but my employees and the people that we hire, guys like you who get to work on the show. And it just continues to grow and grow and grow. When you let these people come in and suck, you know, you know, all the life and the money out of it, it doesn't work. You have to run a real business and you have to have a business that people are interested in, want to invest in, right?

• 45:01Fred Taylor?

  For sure.

• 45:02Channing Crowder?

  And RC brought up the Paul brothers, Logan and Jake. I got into it with Jake, we argued, we argued before. Would you let a celebrity UFC fight happen? Because now everybody's boxing, everybody wants to fucking box. Would you let that happen?

• 45:17Dana White?

  I know, and if you look at what's happened with them, you know, he's gone out there, Jake, Logan's cool, I did his podcast recently and he's a good kid and I like him. I've given him tickets before. Jake is the exact opposite. He likes to stir shit up and butt heads and all that stuff. You know, he's, it's attention 101. I mean, it's textbook how to get attention. I just take it for what it is. I mean, that's what it is. And the media like to print it, not the real media, you know, the goofy internet guys like to use what he says because they're looking for clicks.

• 45:56Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 45:57Dana White?

  But at the end of the day, I mean, that kid wants to fight here. He doesn't want to fight here because he doesn't think we really don't pay guys. He wants to fight here because he knows this is where the money is. Regardless of what he says. But I would never say never. I don't know, I mean. I look at it sometimes and it's kind of intriguing, but it kind of goes against what I do. I really do bring the best of the best in. And I've tried to do a couple of those celebrity things with some WWE guys. Some work, some didn't.

• 46:31Dana White?

  But I don't know, but I wouldn't say no. I did Mayweather McGregor when I said I would never do that.

• 46:36Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I was about to ask you about that.

• 46:38Dana White?

  So, who knows?

• 46:39Fred Taylor?

  Right, I want to go back. You talk about dropping out of school, different ways to make money, not going to college, parents looking down on that and frowning on it. But we live in an age where YouTubers, YouTube, YouTubing is a big thing, right? We get paid from YouTube here on this podcast. Jake and Logan, do your kids like?

• 47:01Dana White?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:01Fred Taylor?

  Do your kids YouTube? Mine are.

• 47:03Dana White?

  The first time I ever heard of those two was from my daughter and her friends when they were really little. There was some song they were listening to or something. But yeah, this whole YouTube thing is fascinating. And you have these kids, like Logan and Jake, the Nelk Boys, and a lot of others, Bryce Hall, some of these kids who have really parlayed YouTube videos into big money. And you gotta, you gotta give them credit, man. It's incredible. And, you know, I might feud with some of these guys, like, I can hate Bob Arum. Bob Arum is a true scumbag, who's done some bad shit in dealing with him, right?

• 47:46Dana White?

  But I, you know, I don't hate Jake Paul. Jake Paul's looking for attention. I hate the guy. You know, and everybody has their opinions. And I'm sitting here telling you guys about America, we're free. Everybody can have their own opinion and, you know, it's all good.

• 48:03Ryan Clark?

  And Dana, you mentioned, like, we've been talking about money. Early on, you talk about building this business from 2 million to where it was and selling it.

• 48:15Ryan Clark?

  You know, you're Bostonian, man, and then, and from Vegas as well. Tell me, what, what was that like? Like, what did you do when you guys make the sale to WME? And, and you know that not only is the business gonna keep growing, but now you have just all of this cash dumped on you. Was it like some big UFC party in Abu Dhabi? Did you, did y'all hop on a, a big plane and you take everybody over? Like, what was the next?

• 48:40Dana White?

  It's a great question. And that is exactly what you would think, right? But it wasn't at all for me. It was actually a really bad time for me. I, I didn't wanna do it. And I, uh, the Fertitas were ready to get out. And they were like, and here was the thing, they had, they had a sit down with me. And they're basically like, you know, we had everybody in here going through the deal. Everybody was in here kicking the tires, looking to buy it. From ESPN to Turner, to all these different funds and groups from all over the world. And they sat me down and said, we're gonna sell this thing and, and we're ready to go. But nobody will take it unless you stay. So you have to stay. You have to do this.

• 49:25Dana White?

  And I was kind of in a weird place, cuz I'd done this thing with them. You know, these are my best friends. We'd done it together. And I got a little fucked up. I kinda, I took off for a little while, went up into a hotel room and didn't come out for a few days.

• 49:37Ryan Clark?

  Wow.

• 49:38Dana White?

  Yeah, I was, I was a little fucked up over the whole thing. So, um, then I snapped out of it. I got my shit together and, uh, yeah, you, you know, the sale happened. You know, it ended up, so there were a few groups. And what I was saying is if I have to stay, don't make, and put me with some fucked up group of people that I, you know what I mean? So Ari was, was going at this thing hard. And I, I, you know, I, I wanted to be with Ari. So it, uh, it worked out perfect. And Ari's been incredible to work with. So, you know, it couldn't have turned out any better. I still love it. I'm still having a blast. I got over my little phase. The money hits the bank and it's, it's a weird, weird thing.

• 50:23Ryan Clark?

  I know, right? The weird sensations.

• 50:26Dana White?

  It's a weird thing, you know? I, I had money. I'd already had money. I'd had money for, you know, for 15 years before that. But then you get that kinda money. And, uh, you know, I built a bigger house and...

• 50:41Ryan Clark?

  How does Dana walk away?

• 50:44Dana White?

  I don't walk away.

• 50:45Channing Crowder?

  Wow.

• 50:45Dana White?

  Yeah, I don't walk away. Going through that transition with the Fertitas to WME was a good experience for me. And it reminded me how much I really love this business and love what I'm doing. So they're probably gonna have to come and drag me out of here. I don't see myself walking away from this.

• 51:04Channing Crowder?

  And Dana, you got all this goddamn money, man. You could just chill. What's it called?

• 51:10Dana White?

  Looking for a fight? Yeah.

• 51:11Channing Crowder?

  You're going out there and chasing bulls around. Bro, if one of them kick you in your goddamn head, bro, you got hundreds of millions. Like, why do you do that?

• 51:21Dana White?

  I don't know.

• 51:22Channing Crowder?

  What are you doing? And what is looking for a fight?

• 51:25Dana White?

  You do it on these crazy people. You guys got great questions, actually. Yeah, I don't know why I do that. You know, believe me, when we rode those bulls, everybody that was around me there was telling me not to do it.

• 51:36Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Dana White?

  And I won't do it again. Let's put it that way. That was a one and done. I won't do that again. Yeah. That one, and we went out in the middle of Florida, the middle of nowhere, in the ocean. And they put chum all over the water. And we jumped in the water to see if we would find... And sharks came from everywhere, man. And there was a shark coming up at us like the movie Jaws.

• 52:03Channing Crowder?

  That's some really white stuff.

• 52:05Dana White?

  And I thought that this thing was gonna hit us. I won't do that again either. That was a one and done.

• 52:10Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, bro.

• 52:11Dana White?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Channing Crowder?

  But you just gotta see it.

• 52:13Dana White?

  We do some dumb shit on that show.

• 52:15Channing Crowder?

  You give me a hundred million. I'm sitting, I'm gonna buy an island and sit on my ass. You just keep going and doing crazy shit, but...

• 52:23Dana White?

  You think you would? And everybody that's watching this right now all has that fantasy of if I had this much money, I'd be sitting on an island somewhere, drinking a cocktail and whatever. How many days can you sit on the island and drink a cocktail before you're like, alright, man? Get me the hell out of here. It's just, you can't do it. I've been on like two week vacations where I'm like losing my mind and can't wait to get back to work. We all have to be a part of something. We all have to get up and, I don't know, I like to win, man. I like to win. I have to get up and try to win every day. And if I don't, it's just, I see why people die after they retire. It makes total sense.

• 53:05Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Dana White?

  You know, getting up and being a part of nothing. You know, mowing your lawn or sitting in the backyard or that shit gets old quick, man.

• 53:15Fred Taylor?

  Dan, I'm gonna say this, man, really quick, and this is it for me. We got a small moment to hang out with you in Nashville, but it was late.

• 53:22Dana White?

  Yeah.

• 53:22Fred Taylor?

  But here today, man, I think prior to this, I had been, you know, hearing things through the media, looking at you from their perspective. But I really want to say, man, I appreciate you coming on the Pivot and really allowing us to see you.

• 53:36Dana White?

  Thank you.

• 53:36Fred Taylor?

  You know, like from your, from the horse's mouth and just sharing these moments with us. We learn a lot from all of our guests. You know, they, they tend to bring, this show tends to bring something out of them that we don't hear about all the time. I guess that's the Pivot. But, man, we appreciate you. Ryan usually raps, he's the consummate pro, Mr. ESPN, but I'm still in his glory right now.

• 53:59Dana White?

  Got it, bro.

• 54:00Fred Taylor?

  Because I respect the [__] out of you for everything you share.

• 54:02Dana White?

  Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it. Now, thank you so much, man. That was amazing, bro. Thank you, guys. This was fun, man. Yeah. You guys asked great questions. Appreciate it, dawg. We'll try. Yeah, man, that was good, man. That was good. You know what's funny? And, and, and Linay, I'll tell you this. Every time somebody asks me to do a podcast, I'm like, these guys are gonna ask me that every other [__] podcast hasn't asked me. You know what I mean? That was dope, man. And that you guys were [__] great.

• 54:48Speaker 06

  Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time.

• 54:59Speaker 07

  Ask your prescriber about Wegovy. Some Maglutide injection, 2.4 milligrams a GLP-1. Call 1-833-4-WEGOVIE or visit wegovie.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about Wegovy. Why wait?