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Dana White on 'Fight Island,' UFC going mainstream | Renaissance Man with Jalen Rose | New York Post
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April 8, 2021
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20:39Now PlayingFrom Jalen: Last year when the pandemic shut everything down and put all sports on the sidelines, one dude leaned into his love of fighting to literally push his way through restrictions and our collective fear. In the process, he created the blueprint that would allow athletes to compete in this bizarre new world. That man, UFC’s Dana White, is my guest on this week’s episode of “Renaissance Man.”
In June, UFC announced the launch of “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi, which was a way to get around travel restrictions, and create a contained environment where COVID-free bouts could happen and be watched on Pay-Per-View. What seemed like a Willy Wonka-esque experiment actually worked. And in July, the NBA would follow suit, launching their bubble in Disney World.
“I always said, let’s take this thing head-on and let’s figure it out,” he told me about COVID-19. “Find solutions because … There’s a standard rule. You have something like this that happens to your business. OK, so here’s what we need to do. We shut down, we get rid of 30% of our staff. We cut all of our executive pay in half.
“There’s no way in hell I’m doing that … A lot of the people that are still here, were here in the beginning as we built this company. You know, people have been here for years,” he added, sounding like a tiger protecting both his meals and his cubs.
And it feels like it’s come full-circle for White and the UFC. On April 24, UFC 261 will be live in Jacksonville, Florida, in front of a capacity crowd.
When I think of UFC, I think American Jon Jones is the best mixed martial arts fighter ever. Irishman Conor McGregor is a great showman, and the French-Cameroonian big man, Francis Ngannou is knocking people out like a modern-day Mike Tyson. There are so many amazing characters from across the globe, but White is still the face of the outfit, which is unheard of in sports.
“I used to make this bold statement 13, 14 years ago that the UFC would be the biggest sport on Earth,” he told me. Bold indeed. In 1996, the late Sen. John McCain referred to mixed martial arts as “human cock fighting,” and here we are in 2021 and it’s mainstream. White had to swim upstream to evangelize it. In the process, he helped create a universal language and culture around combat sports.
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#DanaWhite #JalenRose #RenaissanceMan
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