Dana White Thinks Everyone’s a Fighter

Welcome to the The New Yorker Radio Hour. It's good to see you, Dana. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. let me put it this way. Not all of them watch UFC fights regularly, let's put it that way. Right, yeah. But I think you would also be surprised in who is and who isn't a UFC fan. So where does this all come from? We know about the origins of boxing. People have been fighting forever for sport and otherwise. This form of fighting comes from where? In the early '90s, a bunch of television guys, a local guy here from New York named Bob Meyrowitz, got together and said, Let's answer the age-old question of which fighting style is the best. and all these types of things. And they did the first one, and it rivaled the WWE and boxing pay-per-views at the time. So they were like, Wow, we got something here. So they did another one and another one. What they never realized at the time is that they were building a sport. And the answer to that age-old question is, no one fighting style is the best. You have to have a little piece of everything And Bruce Lee was saying that in the '60s. So I went to see, when I was a kid, I went to see what was called closed-circuit That's right. And the wrestler just stayed on his back and kept kicking Ali in the shins. It was not exciting, I gotta tell you. But UFC has what kind of rules? You get into this octagon, two men or two women, and then what? So what you're saying is exactly right. it wasn't very exciting, and there was a lot of stalling. And when we bought the UFC back in 2001, we ran toward regulation, meaning to have the athletic commissions in each state oversee us. What are the rules for the uninitiated? Two fighters get into the octagon, this kind of padded ring with a fence around it. And then I've got these gloves that aren't quite boxing gloves on me. Maybe they protect my hands, maybe they don't. They do, that's right. And then you just go in and you'll, forgive me, you go to beat the living crap out of the other guy. 'Cause in boxing, you can't hit below the belt. Right, you can't do that. There's all kinds of rules. There's most of the same types of rules, except this can go to the ground, where you can use submissions. You can strike on the ground. A submission is where probably- What used to be called the sleeper hold That's what I was just gonna say. Probably the best one is called the rear naked choke, where you get the choke in, and the guy either taps out or he goes to sleep, yeah. Goes to sleep is a euphemism? Right, no, no. So what you do is the carotid arteries, which slows the blood flow to the brain and makes you go to sleep. Okay, I think I just sensed a lot of people passing on at home. Yeah, it's- How dangerous is this compared to boxing and the other martial arts? This is how dangerous it is. 30 years, never had a death or serious injury. Cheerleading can't say that, okay? And six to seven boxers die a year. When you spend the money on the proper medical attention before they get in, during the fight, and after the fight, you eliminate a lot of the risks in the sport. What about injury down the line? We all know the effects of football, CTEs, and the rest. And I've met a lot of boxers who might have their wits about them when they're active, but years later, Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, many, many other fighters that I've met and tried to interview, And it's very clear that this is the result of repetitive blows to the head. Trauma to the head. Are you saying that UFC is free of that? No, any time you're taking shots to the head, it is very bad for you. So how do you justify it? You have grown adults who choose to do this for a living, and this is what they wanna do. It's not like that thing that went on in the NFL where they thought helmets were protecting their brains. Right. You know? That goes into this. Knows that getting punched in the head is bad for you. Yeah, what's the appeal to you? How did you get into this? So I was a big fan of boxing and grew up loving boxing. It was my favorite sport. And I went to high school with these guys, like the fourth-largest gaming company in the- You grew up on the East Coast and then you moved to Las Vegas? I moved to Las Vegas when I was in fifth grade, and I ended up going to high school with these guys. And one night, Frank Fertitta and I were at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, and there was a fighter there named John Lewis who fought in the UFC, and he had a jiu-jitsu school. And Frank said, I've always wanted to learn jiu-jitsu. So we went over and talked to him. We set up a private lesson on Monday, and we became obsessed. We started training four or five times a week in jiu-jitsu. And through that, we started to meet a lot of the fighters that fought in the UFC. And we were blown away. Most of these guys, it wasn't the same story as boxing. Boxing's story is, I came from the mean streets of such and such, and if it wasn't for boxing, I'd be dead or in jail. Why would that be? Because when you think about, if your parents put you in martial arts when you were young, your parents had money. And a lot of these guys were college wrestlers, so they all went to college. Do you know who Chuck Liddell is? The stereotypical ultimate fighter, if you saw him, on the back of his head. He looks like an ax murderer, if you saw the guy. with an honors degree in accounting. So these were the types of guys that were fighting in the UFC, and I thought that their stories were very interesting. And the truth is, if you've ever been to a UFC fight, anybody who's listening right now that's been, it is the most exciting live sporting event you'll ever see. There's so many different ways to win and lose, and just the energy and the buzz inside the building is amazing. What do you mean, there are so many ways to win and lose? So in boxing, I punch you to the head or body more times than you punch me to the head or body, and I win. Or I knock you out. In the UFC, you can do all of that too, but you can also kick, knee, elbow, punch. It can go to the ground where you fight for submission. So it's just nonstop action. Tell me this, Dana. I think we both agree he might be the greatest even athlete who ever lived, certainly the most exciting human in my lifetime. Who's the Muhammad Ali of the UFC, in your estimation, and why? who I would say is like our Muhammad Ali. But if you're looking for your Michael Jordan, it would be Jon Jones, who is the greatest. And why is that? Tell us about Jon Jones and why he would be that. So Jon Jones is in his 40s now. And he's moved up and down weight classes. It's very, very unique and hard to be undefeated in the UFC. How did you buy UFC? 'Cause you seem to, in retrospect, have bought it for a song. So when we were training in jiu-jitsu and we started to meet a lot of the fighters, I started to manage some of the guys. And I got into a contract dispute with the old owner, Bob Meyrowitz. And Bob said, You know what? There is no more money, okay? I don't even know if I can afford to put on the next event. We hung up, and I said, Wow, that's interesting. I called my partners, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, and said, I just got off the phone with the owner of the UFC. They're in trouble, and we should buy them. You had Senator John McCain, who's nobody's idea of a wimp, Right. How do you respond to that? Yeah, you know, I think that without Senator John McCain, I probably wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you right now. Tell me why. 'Cause I think his stance on the UFC drove them toward, and not only them, but us when we bought it, toward regulation and being regulated by the athletic commissions in each state. This many people wanna see a freak show. This many people wanna see a real sport. So what separated it from the old form to the new form? What were the regulations that were put into place? It used to be banned in 36 states. Well, think about this. You, as a grown adult, didn't have the option to buy it. So when we bought it for $2 million, our goal was to get it back on free television, which everybody thought was impossible. So what were the regulations put into place so that it was no longer a freak show? So what sort of tripped them up early was them sensationalizing it, like, Two men enter the octagon, one man leaves. The most brutal, bloody, violent sport in the world. There are no rules. But that's just hype. Right. You hear that in boxing too. But at the time, and I was involved in boxing when the first one was coming, nobody believed it was true. There's no way this could be real, that this is gonna happen. And it was real. It did happen, and everybody tuned in because of the sensationalism. But that eventually ended up biting them in the end. How so? Because Senator John McCain went after it and said, This is disgusting. Think about, at this time, and again, when you and I grew up, right? Guy would go down. John Wayne didn't jump on top of him and start pounding him. He'd stand him back up and he'd hit him again. You didn't do that. You didn't jump on a guy when he was down. You didn't hit a man when he was down. What do you tell the referees? At what point do the referees jump in 'Cause sometimes, somebody will go down and then the other fighter will jump on him and start punching him mercilessly in the head. It's the fighter's job to keep going, I assume. It's the referee's job to do what? It's the fighter's job to protect himself at all times. And if the referee feels like he can't anymore and the fight needs to be stopped, he stops it. No different than boxing. I mean, you've seen some boxing fights where the guy's out on his feet, he goes down. Yeah, but I've seen I agree, you'll see it in the UFC too. There's terrible refereeing sometimes in the UFC. But you're saying it's terrible because they're too hesitant to stop it or too quick to stop it? Both. So sometimes they're too quick, sometimes they're too late. You know, there's terrible refereeing in boxing, I mean, you're always gonna have some human error. What is the breakdown of fans, men and women? Well, a lot more women now than there was in the beginning. Well, 'cause you have women fighters too. My base was males 18 to 34. And then over the last, really, you know, I went through COVID, right? All I need to do is set up an octagon somewhere and beam it. You know, back then I was on ESPN, beam it to ESPN, and our business grew And a lot of them were women. I've noticed that there are a lot of foreign-born fighters in the UFC, and a lot of them Why is the Caucasus such a seedbed for the UFC? Yeah, if you came from anywhere that ends in stan, And let me ask you this, is it a challenge to try to market the UFC when you have so many foreign fighters, or it doesn't really matter? You know, people ask me, What about foreign? What about this? You can be a deaf mute, okay? If you are the baddest man or woman in the world, If you have that Conor McGregor, that Muhammad Ali thing, I mean, that's just a- Okay, tell me about Conor McGregor. What does Conor McGregor have that separates him out? He has that ability that when he walks into a room, you know, people just are fascinated by him, to listen to him. And they're real personalities, you know? Or are they put on in the way that pro wrestlers of my childhood and then after? Some are, some are. Have the thing that they turn on when they're, was the same guy in the living room with his wife and kids that he was when you saw him on TV. And Conor McGregor's the same. Why do you think UFC has taken off now? What is it about the culture, the other sports, the media sphere? Well, I have this philosophy that no matter what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak, we're all human beings, and fighting's in our DNA. We get it, we like it. Even a sophisticated guy like you that writes for The New Yorker and whatever, if a fight broke out in here right now, it would create this sort of energy in here with you and I, and we'd be like, Oh, wow. And we would watch the fight play out. Right. It's just in humans- You think it's just in us? It's in us, absolutely. 100%. Is that something Everybody listening to this show right now, we get up every day and we battle something. We all have to fight. When you get outta bed every morning, life is standing right there to kick you in the face. And it could be, as soon as you get outside, for going 17 minutes or whatever it is But you're associated with him. I'm not associated with him. You are. He's one of my very, Okay, you spoke for him at the nominating conventions. Yep. I think at the victory celebration, you were one of the speakers right there with him. That was not planned. Tell me a bit about the origins of your relationship with Donald Trump. I don't know if it's political in origin or just maybe a UFC thing. Further thing from political. Tell me. So when we started this, all the things that we've talked about, in buying and building the UFC, now imagine, if this wasn't allowed on pay-per-view, Arenas did not want us, right? What kind of people would show up to see an event like this, human fighting? So Donald Trump owned the Atlantic City casinos at the time, and he had us come to the Taj Mahal for the first fights that we did, UFC 30. We did UFC 30 and UFC 31 at the Taj Mahal. [David] What year is this? He showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed till the end both times that we went there. And every good thing that ever happened to me in my career after that, he was always the first guy to reach out I always knew this was gonna be big. What did he like about it? You know, you wanna talk about a fighter. One of the most resilient human beings I've ever met in my life. And he had the big Tyson fights and boxing matches at his place. and the guy has always been a good friend to me. And then in 2015, when he decided he was gonna run, he reached out to me and he said, I would be honored if you'd speak for me. Well, this is the way he said it. Go ahead. Called me and said, If you don't wanna do this, I completely understand, but I would be honored if you would speak for me And everybody told me not to do it. Well, Dana, tell me a little bit what your politics were like up until then, and what was your sense of his politics up until then? I would say that my politics have always been common sense down the middle, leaning a little left. That's what I would say I was. In my 20s, my late teens and 20s, I spent in Massachusetts, which is very liberal. And yeah, I would consider myself an '80s, '90s Democrat. Have you changed over time politically? So you remain a kind of center-left Democrat? Do you talk politics with Trump? Or did you before the first convention? That wasn't a currency of your conversation or your relationship? If you look at any of my speeches at the conventions or any of that, I don't ever say the left is wrong or the left is bad or the left is this. I spoke about who he is as a person and as a friend and as a human being, because a lot of the narrative that they put out there about him and who he is as a person is gross. Okay, so let's dig into that a little bit too. I think it's fair to say that if he has that reputation, it doesn't come from outer space. Oh, it does. It comes from politics. That's where it comes from. Doesn't it come from some of his rhetoric and some of his way of treating people No, I think that, listen, you know, did I wish that back in the day, he'd stay off Twitter a little bit more and things like, and he's not afraid to give his opinion. But he's been talking about politics since he was young. I mean, if you look back at him. But these things that he's a racist and he's a Nazi and he is this and that, I mean, Donald Trump, all this stuff's coming out now. You know, the Michael movie just came out, and you see all these videos now popping up and the type of person that he was, and that Michael Jackson was around his children and around his family a lot. Michael Jackson, as talented as he was, as brilliant as he was, No doubt about it. To say the least. Everything we know about him, to even kids, yes, it's terrible. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true, but I can tell you that the president had a very good relationship with Michael Jackson and had Michael Jackson around his kids all the time, and defended him when that stuff was going down. Do you ever talk politics with the President? To call the guy a racist Look, I don't wanna go on endlessly about Donald Trump, 'cause then that's all we'll do. But when he puts out a video that shows the Obamas as apes and then won't even apologize for it, you don't get the willies from that? No, I've been around the guy so much. But that doesn't give you pause, Dana? As far as what? About his views of, just about his way he talks about other human beings, much less race? Well, if that's the way, if he was that type of a person, first of all, I became friends with this guy never even imagining that he would be the president of the United States someday. Right. And if he was that type of person, I would never associate with that type of a person, no matter who he was or who he thinks he is. But if he does that, how is he not that kind of person? He's not. But do you know something, what you're telling me is that you kind of know. Of course, you know him better personally. But he's the most transparent personality we have in public life. True. He talks to the press all the time. He's on social media all the time. It seems sometimes there's nothing that we don't know about him. Very true. So he's almost as apparent to me as he is to you. And I don't know about the old Obama thing to speak on. I've never seen it, I didn't know that. But I can tell you this, he's not a racist. And if you're an American, race, religion, whatever it is, President Trump is on your team. you have a very close relationship with. In fact, you hired him as an announcer, Tell me about him, 'cause I listen to him from time to time. But now that he's hugely famous, he's kind of protective of himself and his brand. Tell me about your relationship with him. So when we bought the company, the company was based here in New York. So I flew from Vegas to New York, got into the office, and I had to start cleaning out the office. So I had to figure out what was important to send back to Vegas and what I was gonna throw away. and one of the tapes that I popped in, and the way that Joe spoke about the UFC and how fighters in the UFC would match up against some of these Hollywood action stars, I was like, This is exactly who I need. Because his talent is what? So his talent is he's a martial artist. So the hardest part in selling this thing, the Fertittas and I knew everybody understands the stand-up. Punching and kicking, everybody gets it. But as soon as it hits the ground, people have no idea what's going on. What do you mean? As far as setting up submissions, like you said, the sleeper hold- So it's more hidden The technical side of the ground game, Joe was brilliant. So he could walk you through what was happening seconds before it even happened. And he was great at speaking publicly about the UFC and about the athletes. So when we first bought the company, I flew all over the country 'cause remember, newspapers were the king then. So all these guys were 60 to 65 years old that I was talking to. All they cared about was ball-and-stick sports and sometimes boxing, you know what I mean? And the truth of the matter was, there was no room for UFC in the papers. So I had to buy my way onto radio. So we would do these satellite radio tours, and what we learned is fighters are not good radio, all right? They'd still sound like they were sleeping. There was nothing exciting. So me and Joe Rogan had to do all these radio tours. Now we're on the West Coast. By yourselves? Yeah. We had to wake up at three o'clock in the morning, because they're gonna drop us into the East Coast So then we'd go East Coast, Midwest, and then the tour would end on the West Coast. Our start all started on radio. So he worked for you for quite a while, and then he obviously has his podcast, which is gigantic. My understanding is that you were instrumental in getting him to endorse Donald Trump this last time around. Tell me that story. Yeah, so I tried to connect him and Trump for like probably six years. in some way, and why? Yeah. He did not wanna get into politics. He did not wanna be political. But then he had Bernie Sanders on, you know? [David] That's right, he was kind of pro And even when I talked to him about Trump going on the podcast, he says, Well, okay, well, I'm gonna invite Kamala too. Get it, love it. And early on, I started telling the president, if you stay on Fox and only Fox, you're gonna lose, because most of the people on Fox are already voting for you. And every other network says horrible things about you. You gotta start getting into podcasts. And who was he gonna reach when he goes on Joe Rogan, in your view? Well, it wasn't just Joe Rogan, it was other podcasters. He was picking me up in Las Vegas, and we were flying to Arizona for a rally. And there's a group called the Nelk Boys that I had created a relationship with. And I called Jared Kushner and I said, the Nelk Boys, on Air Force One with us to Arizona. Well, you're asking him that, I'm not. And so I called him and he said, Yeah, let's do it. So we get in there, and these guys were all excited 'cause they're Trump fans and, you know, they're kids. So at one point, he looks at me and he's like, Are you kidding me right now? Are you serious? And we're all in there taking pictures. To his brilliance, we go to the rally, he does the rally, and he is leaving the stage and the YMCA thing's playing. And he sees one of the kids, whose name is SteveWillDoIt, The president calls him up on stage with him, and the whole crowd erupts. And they start doing the YMCA thing. It was the most viral thing on the internet that day. And then he got it, the power of these kids that most people don't know. The media's all starting to get into it now, which- It's not the mainstream newspapers. By the time the media catches up, it's over, yeah. So then we got him on their podcast, and the podcast did something like eight million views in four hours, and YouTube pulled it down, and all hell broke loose. That's when the whole thing started with social media and all that stuff, but he got it. as the campaign between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was winding down, you called Rogan, I think, and you said, Are you gonna endorse or not? Tell me about that conversation. I was flying to Mar-a-Lago, me and Frank Fertitta, And he had done the podcast, and the podcast was blowing up, And I texted him and said, Are you voting for Trump? And he said, Yes. Why have you not endorsed him? He said, I'm just busy. You think, so that was you, it's on you. Is it on me? But you gave him the extra shove. Yeah, well, I had been working on him for a few years. So now these days, I'm sure you've noticed, Now, he was thrilled to see him endorse But he's been very tough on him on a number of issues, Do you agree with Rogan on this? I think that anybody who is the president of the United States, you're never gonna agree with 100% of what they do. But what do you disagree with, with Donald Trump? Me and Donald Trump are friends. So you have this, you're saying, relationship with Donald. No, I get that. But you don't wanna express any disagreement. Be honest with me on the air? No, it's, no, it's not that, I just told you before, I wish I could take his Twitter away sometimes in the past. I know who this guy is. Do you agree with him on Iran? And what did I say? What did I say when I was at those- No, they were congratulatory. They were personal, for sure. They weren't political in any way, shape, or form. You think it would be disloyal, you're saying? What would be? To criticize him in any way? No, no, not to criticize him. And I'm not saying that I agree with all those policies. But you wanna keep that general, not specific, is what you're saying. Yeah, you know what I do? I can control my little world that I live in, in my bubble. My employees, my fighters, my family, and my friends. You're about to have an extraordinary event in Washington. of the Declaration of Independence with a UFC fight event And I've heard the weigh-ins may take place Tell me about that event, its origins, and what you hope to do. Yeah, so we were at a fight, and I can't remember if it was in New Jersey or Miami, we being me and the president. And he leans over to me in the middle of the fight and goes, We should do a fight at the White House. Yes, we should. And he's like, I think it would be great to have an event for America's 250th. And so literally, that was a Saturday. On Monday, the White House started calling, saying, And your in charge? Set up, and yeah. Who are you gonna have fight? So every fight actually means something and matters in the division. Two world titles on the line. And stylistically, it should be a great fight. What's it gonna look like? It looks like a fight in outer space with the White House there. And the reason that it looks like that All I wanna see is the White House, the entire White House and the monument if the fight goes the other way. So we had to build this thing that we are calling the claw. It is the lighting grid. And how many people are gonna be in the stands around it? So there will be a little over 4,000. I have 200 tickets, and Ari Emanuel has 200 tickets. And the rest are going to all the different branches of the military. Of the 4,000 people that will be there. And then in the Ellipse, which is a park right across the street from the White House, So how are you gonna broadcast this? So we just signed a new seven-year deal with Paramount Plus, and all of our content is there. Do you notice people on the other side of the aisle, Democrats, liberals, trying to show up Or are you concerned that you have a kind of partisan image? No, no, we haven't had anybody. And why do you suppose that is? I would never disrespect or turn anybody away. You know what I mean? I get that, I get that. But it's interesting to see them show up at Joe Rogan's microphone, and they might go but they're keeping their distance from UFC. I think that the difference with President Trump is he was a day-one fan. I mean, this guy's been a fan since day one. He was on the ground floor. Gave us that opportunity to come to the Taj Mahal. And you saw it with Obama. Obama's a fan of the NBA, so he showed up at NBA games. Yeah, and Bush too. Has Obama ever showed up is a baseball fan. No, I know. But has Obama ever showed up at a UFC fight? No, but at the inauguration, I was sitting behind all the ex-presidents. Yeah, and there were some things that went out online that said, Oh, look at Dana mad-dogging Obama, and all this other stuff. President Obama turned around and said to me, Congratulations on all your success. I'm really happy for you. And I said, Thank you, Mr. President. That must have made you feel good. You were just at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and you were quoted as saying, and I don't wanna take this outta context. Yeah, no, you go. Let you tell the story. You said, It was awesome. Yeah. Now that could have been, it was pretty horrible. What did you mean by it was awesome? So I was sitting there talking to Pete Hegseth. The Secretary of Defense. Yes. Or war, depending on your- Yes. And, you know, we were talking about all this fascinating stuff, and all of a sudden- Wait, wait, you can't go that fast. What was the fascinating stuff you were talking about? We were talking about Iran and, you know, what's going on over there- And what was he telling you? All of a sudden, you start hearing just crashing, like plates and dishes and glasses. I turn around and what looked like 50 Secret Service guys kicking tables over, running on the tops of tables, and they're screaming, Everybody get on the ground! And I was like, Oh my God. Then I watched them pull Vance and Trump off the stage. They clear the stage, and then literally, the entire stage are guys with guns, with lights on them pointed at us. Now, the Secret Service guys are coming toward our table. I was the first table in front of the stage, and we don't know what's going on. And just the adrenaline in your body, and mine anyway, was off the charts. I mean, they're saying, Get down, get down. First of all, I'm never a get-down kind of guy, okay? If there's something going on here, I got bad news for my family, it's gonna be a closed casket, okay? 'Cause I'm not getting shot in the back And these guys came in and how fast they moved through this place, it was just, now being another man, tell me the greatest movie you ever saw with those types, just on steroids. I mean, it was, now- Which made it even greater. And when it was over, I was like, for four hours, I was bouncing off the walls. And what did Hegseth do? The fact that- Hegseth, they dragged off? Let me tell you what Hegseth didn't do. He didn't get on the ground either. He was sitting right next to me, and then his wife was with him, and then he ended up taking his wife out of there. But you stayed. Oh, yeah. Well, I had to stay. Nobody was dragging you. Nobody dragged me off. We had to stay in there. And I'll tell you this too. So you had the who's who from politics, the who's who from the media, and the who's who in business in this room. which were a lot of women. None of these women were screaming. None of these women were getting And then when it was over and we knew that the threat was over, everybody just started getting together and talking. It was pretty badass and pretty impressive. You weren't scared at all? Never. Not even for Trump's sake? No, they got that- You thought that was under control. They had him outta there What did you think Trump was gonna say that night Well, he tried to come back. He wanted to do the event, and Secret Service wouldn't let him. I'm sure there were a lot of far-left women in there that probably don't like me or think that I, you know. What counts as far-left for you, what do you mean? You know, in the media. We all got together after that and everybody was talking, and there's just this level of camaraderie and just that- what we just went through. And, you know, the fact that you could experience something like that and nobody got hurt, but to be in it and see it play out like you would see in a movie, but actually experience it, was hopefully a one-of-one, but an incredible experience. Have you talked to President Trump since then? I was with him last night. I had dinner with him last night. And how'd that dinner go, what'd you talk about? Well, there were other people. He opened the Rose Garden last night, and he had his first dinner out there. I flew in and had dinner with him and then flew here. What do you talk about? You know, he and I just talk about anything that you would normally talk to your friend about. how you been, you look great. He looks like he's in good shape right now. So you don't buy the business of, you know, he is around 80 and it's not easy being president, it's not easy being 80, and that his health is lousy. You don't see that? His health is far from lousy. Tell me about that. Far from lousy. And this isn't the Biden buddies of his backing him up saying he's whatever. He looks like he's in better shape than the last time I saw him. And, you know, he was on point last night. Do you worry about his presidency? His popularity is at a record low. Record low for other presidents too. Where do you think he is at this point? You know, I think that he's got three more years left. Two and a half, but who's counting? You judge him when it's over. When his run is over and he moves on and you look back at what he accomplished and what he's done, I think there's a lot of things that he's obviously never gonna get credit for because, you know, if you don't like him, you don't like him. What do you give him credit for as president? I mean, how do you not give him credit for that? Look at the work he did in the Middle East during his first term. to the Abraham Accords? Yeah, of course. I mean, the Middle East is a tricky place to navigate. And I think he does a better job than most. I get the sense, Dana, that to some degree, you'll be glad not to have to answer questions about Donald Trump when he is out of office. No, I think- That you wanna be a loyal friend. No, no, no. When it comes to the specifics of his politics, you'd rather, I get it. No, not at all. Go ahead. People can ask me about Donald Trump for the rest of my life. And I'll tell you all the great things that I love about this guy. What I'll be happy to be out of is politics. this guy, that guy, none of them. Yeah, you made a huge deal with the UFC. How much did you come away with? You personally? Oh, no, no, no, no. The company, yeah. And how about you? Yeah, I do really well. I do really well. You wanna give me another shot on that one? Yeah. Are you a billionaire now? And you recently- I spend too much money. It's really funny, but I've watched you play poker on television and other games of chance, and the bets on the table are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes, on a single bet, over a million bucks if they'll take the bet. Right. Are you out of your mind? How does your wife feel about these bets? Yeah, you know, my wife's doing okay too. We don't have a lot to complain about. No, but you know that in the end, the house wins, right? And in the end, you only live once. You have a personal life, obviously, friendships. You look like you're in- And kids. Good shape. I got kids, thank you. Trying. What do you do? What do you do to keep jacked? Listen, when you turn, like you said, mid-50s- Tell me about it. Trying not to get fat and I'm trying not to get hurt. Those are my two goals every day. And live the best quality of life that I can. I just went to the Kentucky Derby for the first time with my wife and kids. Did you put down a bet? I did, yeah. How'd you do? I don't sports bet much. How much did you put down? Now, how big is gambling in your line of business with UFC? sports betting period is massive right now. Now how do you ensure- I do not sports bet though. But how do you ensure, how do you keep it clean? How do you keep it on the up and up? Not with the mob or any of that kind of stuff, but we've had- New versions of it. But we have a company called U.S. Integrity that watches this type of stuff. Yeah, they let us know whenever the state- So we had an issue where we saw some irregular betting going on. Right. And we called the FBI. That's what we do. So tell me the story. What does irregular betting mean in this context? It means when you have a fight that isn't like the main event and the line starts to move a lot. But that's the indicator in fighting, that the line moves. So there's the suspicion that somebody's about to throw a fight. There's something fishy going on when an undercard fight and a line starts moving. Particularly the undercard, not the headliners? Yeah, because the headliners are very high profile and lots of people are betting on it. And, you know, it can happen there too, but it's a lot more noticeable when it happens on a prelim fight. Now, you're also in the boxing business. What does Zuffa mean, by the way? My impression has been that with some exceptions in recent years, boxing is not certainly what it was in the '50s and '60s and '70s and- And if so, why are you getting into it? Yeah, I think that boxing's been broken for a long time for a lot of different reasons. And I love the sport, and I've always talked about jumping in and trying to sort of, you know, and try to see what I could do with it. And everything in life is about timing. And the timing just worked out in the last year. And so far, so good. I'm having fun with it. What I wanna do is try to rip it apart, build it from the ground up, and see what I can do with it over the next five year. You said that, in some ways, your sport was the result of the imaginative games that we used to play about, you know, would this boxer beat that wrestler? Your biggest fighter is Conor, right? And does he beat Sugar Ray Robinson? Well, it's different. Or has this sport put the lie to all of that? If he comes here and if he goes there- They're on a common ground. All right, I hope you come back. This was fun. I'd love to. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here.