In this episode, Dana White sits down with UFC President and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta to talk about how he built one of the most successful companies in the history of the UFC. They discuss how he got started in the fight business, how he bought the UFC, and what it's like being the president of the world's largest mixed martial arts organization. Dana also talks about what it was like growing up in a small town in the late 80s and early 90s, and how he dealt with the aftermath of the financial crisis that hit the UFC in the early 2000s. Dana and Lorenzo also discuss how the UFC has managed to bounce back from adversity and how they've managed to stay relevant in a tough industry like the fight game. They also discuss the differences between the boxing business and the MMA business, and why the UFC is better than boxing in terms of business and business acumen. UFC President Dana White talks about the importance of having a good relationship with your employees and how important it is to have a strong relationship with them. Dana talks about his relationship with his employees and why it's important to have good relationships with them and why they're so important in the business. UFC is a great place to be a part of your life and why you should be there to support your friends and family. The UFC is not only in the sport, but in your life. We hope you enjoy this episode and share it with your friends, family, family and your significant other. Thank you so much for listening to this episode! -Jon Sorrentino and thank you for supporting the UFC! -MMAKE THE UFC. -Dana White & Co. -Jon & Dana White - The UFC - The Ultimate Fighting Championship - Dana White and the UFC - UFC - Dana's Story - The Fight Game - UFC: The Ultimate Fighter - The Rise of Dana s Journey - UFC's Journey - The Power of a Fighter - UFC vs. The UFC, The UFC's Story of a Man in the Fight Game, UFC's Future - UFC s Future - The Real Life - The Future of the MMA Game - The People s Most Powerful Man - Dana s Story of UFC's Most Powerful People - The Best of UFC? - The Most Powerful Person in the MMA Business - UFC, UFC s Most Successful Man in The UFC? and much more! Subscribe to our new show, we'll be hearing from the UFC s most Influential Man in America?
Transcript
Transcripts from "Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. You can also explore and interact with the transcripts here.
00:00:00.000But your passion's still in this, and that's awesome.
00:00:02.000I love taking things that people think can't be successful and making them successful.
00:03:47.000What's different about UFC versus what your old days were in boxing in terms of just the character of the business and what drew you?
00:03:55.000Well, the difference is, you know what's fascinating about boxing?
00:03:59.000There's probably never been another business.
00:04:03.000We're literally trillions of dollars have been made.
00:04:06.000And at the end of the day, there's nothing there.
00:04:09.000So what we wanted to do is come in and build, you know, almost like a league, a brand like the NFL or Major League Baseball and where there was actually value.
00:04:19.000Inside the brand and bring all the fighters inside so that you could put on the best fights that the fans want to see.
00:04:47.000Not to bring it into this, but it reminds me of the weirdness of a political campaign.
00:04:51.000It's a business that's designed to end by the time you actually wind it up, which means you actually do all kinds of screwed up things along the way compared to a real business that's built to last.
00:05:55.000Well, since 2016, you know, I came back.
00:05:57.000That's a long time to still be around after having sold it.
00:05:59.000Well, what happened was when we were selling it at the time, you know, I thought that me and the Fertittas would ride off into the sunset and whatever was next we would do.
00:07:16.000When we went through COVID, they were who we partnered up with to go through COVID. My whole thing was when we were going through COVID is like, They're testing in Abu Dhabi.
00:07:26.000If they're testing, why can't we test here?
00:07:29.000So, you know, I was always very optimistic that we could pull it off and go through COVID. So they ended up being good friends that you made.
00:09:37.000I sent it out around somebody to a book agent, another author I knew said, okay, here's an agent.
00:09:41.000And they sent it back to me and they said, hey, listen, if you want to actually put your talents to use, you're a businessman, maybe you can use your financial resources to support somebody who has literary talent.
00:11:01.000You see these people like, oh, you know, I'm thinking about working for myself because, you know, I want to have some time off and I want to take some vacation.
00:11:08.000You don't want to work for yourself if that's what you're looking for.
00:11:12.000You want to work for yourself, you have to get in there and grind and work hard.
00:11:15.000And I respect everybody who gets out there and tries to do it.
00:11:31.000I think that any time I've felt in my life that you're actually laboring, like you're doing it for somebody else, you don't have the motivation to actually see it through.
00:11:40.000Did you ever start to start a business before this one?
00:11:59.000I was standing in the lobby one day, and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing here?
00:12:03.000This is not me, this is not what I want to do, and I want to be in the fight business.
00:12:08.000And everybody told me at the time, which, fair enough, is probably the dumbest thing anybody ever heard, you know, that I wanted to be in the fight business.
00:12:14.000But I walked out, I think half the battle in life...
00:12:18.000That's kind of an interestingly weird choice to make.
00:12:21.000You're a valet at a hotel, and you say, I want to be in the fight business.
00:12:43.000And, you know, not a dude you went looking for, but I went looking for him.
00:12:48.000And I approached him, and I said, I know you don't know me, and I know this is weird, but I want to learn everything that you can teach me about the fight game.
00:15:22.000Where did that 30 to 40% layoff number come from that people were proposing to you?
00:15:26.000Yeah, you know, basically, you know, we were looking down the barrel.
00:15:30.000First of all, I knew that I was going to get paid bonus and all that stuff.
00:15:34.000So if I was going to get that, I'd give that up to give to my employees while we tried to go through COVID. And I looked at it as, this is the way I look at my team.
00:15:47.000No one guy does anything by himself, right?
00:15:50.000You have somebody who is the vision and gets everything set up, but you need a team to really accomplish the things that I want to accomplish.
00:15:59.000And over the last 23 years, I've built the biggest, baddest team in all of sports.
00:16:04.000I'll put my team up against any other team and any other sport anywhere.
00:16:10.000And, you know, the first day that they started shutting everything down, brought all my employees downstairs.
00:18:04.000My whole fucking team stormed the beach with me, and we went, and we ripped through COVID. It was the most successful time in the company's history.
00:18:13.000Three fights that should have been doing 350,000 buys were doing a million.
00:20:40.000And when you sit down with the royal family over in Abu Dhabi, these people are so smart and so humble and caring and just, like, write down, like...
00:21:46.000I mean, it was interesting, because...
00:21:49.000It doesn't feel to me like their whole investment, I mean, I don't know the first thing, but just my gut instinct is it wasn't just a financial investment for them, right?
00:23:04.000Yeah, if it wasn't for jiu-jitsu, Frank Lorenzo and I would have never got into the UFC. If it wasn't for jiu-jitsu, we probably would have never met Sheik Tak Noon.
00:23:30.000Sometimes we think it's the serendipity.
00:23:32.000I've been increasingly convinced that that's happening every day and it's just the days that you're actually open to it is the days where you actually end up finding the connections that already exist.
00:26:46.000So tell me about what your perception has been from going over there, of what you see in the culture, both in the fight culture, but also what it's taught you about the broader culture of national pride over there.
00:26:56.000When you think about China or Japan and any of the places in Asia, that's where martial arts comes from.
00:28:31.000I'm hoping that's a pendulum that's going to swing in the other direction.
00:28:35.000That's why I ran for president, actually, is I feel like that animal spirit right inside the heart of our country It actually has been tamed and domesticated into this new culture that celebrates victimhood and apology instead of excellence.
00:28:52.000And that animal left and went to places like China, lifted them up.
00:28:56.000They used to have that culture of victimhood under Mao and otherwise.
00:28:59.000That's actually come back here to hold us down.
00:29:03.000And so I think that that is a phase we're in.
00:29:13.000And talk about this, because there's a lot of people that feel that way.
00:29:17.000But for some reason, this whole cancel culture and all the other bullshit that's flying around right now, where if you fucking say anything that anybody doesn't like, They're coming after you.
00:30:53.000I don't want to speak too much on it because I don't know enough about it, but apparently there's a basketball team up there that is incredible.
00:31:01.000High school or college team, I'm not sure.
00:31:43.000I want to reward these guys for being such badasses when these pussies that control whatever league they're in or whatever are trying to do this to them.
00:31:57.000It's disgusting and every one of you that are involved in the state of Maine that are imposing this thing on this team, you guys fucking make me sick.
00:32:08.000You are what's wrong with this country right now.
00:33:17.000But the fact that instead of teaching young people to say, this is what you should aspire to, and instead teaching them that this is what you should force these people to apologize for, that's what's drained the lifeblood out of this country.
00:33:30.000It's kind of what got me into politics, man.
00:33:31.000And when you think about guys, entrepreneurs that build stuff like this, How many other people's lives it affects in a positive way?
00:34:49.000You know, one of the things I've seen is I went to New York City after the campaign.
00:34:52.000You know, I thought I was going to go to New Hampshire, ended up after Iowa.
00:34:55.000I thought it was clear the right move would get behind Trump and move to the next phase.
00:34:59.000So instead of going to New Hampshire, I visited some friends and family in New York City.
00:35:02.000What I see is even a lot of my old friends who used to think in a very different way after COVID, after what you've seen in the wave of crime affecting places up and down from California to New York, I think their views have totally morphed, actually, in a different direction.
00:35:19.000I expected, I wasn't sure what to expect, actually, because I used to live in Manhattan.
00:35:23.000You go back there after saying the things I've been saying for a year.
00:35:27.000I kid you not, we have people on the streets sticking their heads out of cars and driving through Central Park, cheering for me just because they're seeing me walk on the street, doormen into buildings, and they'll say, hey, listen up, I'm with you and I'm voting for Trump.
00:36:57.000Do you have a mission statement for UFC? Just off the top of your head, what would you say is the mission of this place?
00:37:06.000You know what the mission of this place is?
00:37:07.000We aspire to be the best, not just combat sport in the world, the best sport in the world where we're always trying to take it to the next level, whether it's technology and production, whether it's social media, the live event, whatever it could be, we're always aspiring to be better.
00:37:27.000So it turns out your skin color doesn't limit your ability to do that or your race or your gender or sexuality.
00:41:16.000So they'll take two or three candidates that they think they like and that they think I'll like, and then they come sit with me, and then I make the final decision.
00:41:23.000You still interviewing most of the people who come in here to work?
00:43:52.000And if you can stay here for a certain amount of time, you make really good money, you know?
00:43:57.000You can support your family, you can pay your house off, you can, you know, you're not going to be, you know, you're not going to have 30, 40 million dollars, but...
00:44:05.000You'll have six, seven, eight million.
00:44:08.000For people who, many of whom may not have had that.
00:46:05.000Because a lot of the stuff that you're talking about, even you're saying you're going to hire the best person for the job, you're going to do whatever's right.
00:46:11.000COVID, you're going to do the right thing for the business rather than what the media tells you.
00:46:14.000It's actually a lot easier to do that as a private company than it is as a public company, because you got the Blackrocks.
00:46:21.000I don't know for sure, but Blackrocks probably owns a good number of shares of your company, too.
00:46:41.000We'll maybe close on this is, Say you're talking to a younger version of yourself, that 19-year-old at, you know, valet at the hotel in Boston.
00:47:57.000I think the hardest part for so many of those young people, maybe for those young fighters or for that younger version of yourself, is actually that first question of even answering who you are.
00:48:16.000If you go to any college anywhere in the world, right, and you meet 10 college students, and you say, hey, what are you taking?
00:48:25.000I'm taking political science right now, but I'm thinking of switching to marketing.
00:48:29.000You were told that if you didn't go to college, you would never amount to anything, okay?
00:48:34.000Then you get to college, and you're taking these classes because you were told you had to go here anyway, but you don't really know what you want to do and don't know who you are, so at the end of the day, you end up with a degree that you can't use because you don't know what the fuck you want to do.
00:49:06.000I want gritty, talented people, exactly, that are willing to work.
00:49:10.000And I'm telling you, I'm so lucky to have the team that I have.
00:49:15.000The hardest thing is, hopefully you're helping people do that here, is figure out who you are.
00:49:20.000You said figure out who you are and then don't listen to anybody.
00:49:23.000But that's what I think so many people, including young people, are struggling with today is, how do I go about figuring out who I am when I'm conditioned?
00:49:32.000To believe something that I'm taught about myself.
00:50:08.000On my side, we'll figure out what's coming up next.
00:50:11.000It's going to be helping this country in whatever way I can.
00:50:14.000Whether you're an entrepreneur in politics, not just about whatever it is, fighting business, being a teacher, a volunteer, whatever it is, figuring out who you are is the hardest part.
00:50:26.000But once you got that, nobody's going to stop you from achieving the maximum of your potential.
00:50:31.000And if you do become vice president, president someday, it's about unifying this country, making people proud again to be American, and helping American citizens to do better.
00:51:12.000It's almost the advice to a young person that you give is the same advice I would give to the country.
00:51:16.000Figure out who you are and then don't listen to what anybody else from the media to another country tells you to the UN that tells you what you're supposed to do.
00:51:33.000We're a melting pot of lots of different peoples from all over the world, different nationalities, different religions and races and everything else.
00:51:40.000And it's like when we were going through COVID, I was like, I'm an American.
00:51:44.000I don't fucking hide my house from anything.
00:52:01.000That's what we've been doing, and we're not going to stop now.
00:52:03.000We're the explorers, we're the pioneers, the unafraid, the people who would not be stopped by some king sitting across an ocean halfway around the world.
00:52:12.000And so let's not be that country today either.