Dana White's Five Pillars of Failure

It's been a rough summer for The Bald One. Can he salvage the rest of 2024?

Dana White’s presser after Tuesday’s Contender Series got a fair amount of discussion.

YouTube troll king/toxic voice of the average UFC fan The MMA Guru had a good summary, capped off with some hate bombs tossed Dana’s way:

When I first heard that Dana White was going off glazing Jon Jones at the press conference of the Contender Series I thought, ‘Oh my God this is going to be great. I'm going to make a video where I disprove every single point that he makes. This is going to be amazing.’

What I didn't realize was Kevin Iole and the rest of the MMA media cooked him for me. … I thought I was going to have to go through every point he made and disprove it but no the media members are teaming up and jumping Dana White from all angles and they just absolutely scored him in this debate about Jon Jones.

Dana White is gaslighting MMA fans. At one point during this (press conference), he said that there would be riots if he canceled Jones vs Miocic.

He has no idea what MMA fans want.

That video is below. But note how harshly Guru is talking about Dana — and remember this guy, who is as obnoxiously and pungently debasing as he presents himself to be on camera, truly speaks for the modern UFC fan.

And then look especially the part I put in italics above:

This hasn’t happened in years. And it’s not just happening because Dana White is saying some stupid shit to hype Jon Jones and distract from the fact that he’s not booking Jones against interim champ Tom Aspinall.

It’s happening because Dana has lost his mojo.

Let’s discuss the five real reasons why Dana no longer has the Midas Touch.

And they’ve got fuck all to do with Jon Jones or imaginary pound-for-pound or GOAT rankings.

I’ll be talking real-world shit that is vitally important to the UFC business.

1. Dana got Hulked at the RNC

When Dana White and Donald Trump walked out together as the UFC 302 pay-per-view opened, I wigged out and had a terrifying vision of Dana White as the future of GOP politics in America.

As regular readers know, I’m an idiot.

Six weeks later, Dana White spoke at the Republican National convention and got completely, mercilessly out-shined by fucking Hulk Hogan.

Here’s the Google trends results for Dana and Hulk’s names during convention week. ‘Nuff said:

So much for Dana White, future Governor of Nevada.

2. The $175M+ Bud Light deal was a bust

Last October, the UFC inked a HUGE deal with the parent company of Bud Light. According to Bloomberg, it was a six year deal that was “the mixed-martial arts promoter’s biggest-ever sponsorship, topping a previous high of $175 million.”

Here’s what Dana did for the money:

To help win back alienated fans, Bud Light inked a multi-year deal with UFC in October that was the mixed-martial arts promoter’s biggest-ever sponsorship, topping a previous high of $175 million. UFC CEO Dana White, an outspoken supporter of former president Donald Trump, went on Fox News and lauded the company’s spending with US farmers.

White told Tucker Carlson in a separate interview: “If you consider yourself a patriot, you should be drinking gallons of Bud Light.”

Trump later joined the redemption tour, saying in February on social media that the brand should be given a second chance. “The Bud Light ad was a mistake of epic proportions, and for that a very big price was paid,” Trump wrote.

CNBC reported that Trump backed the brand publicly after being asked to do so by White, who introduced the former president at this year’s Republican National Convention. UFC declined to comment. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Nine months later, here’s how Bloomberg described the results of the campaign:

Oof.

3. Power Slap

Trent Reinsmith has the latest in two tweets:

That didn’t stop them from selling it to the Saudis as part of a TKO package though.

As Jed I. Goodman reported, “Turki Alalshikh revealed details of the upcoming Riyadh Season 2024 which includes a UFC event, Power Slap, WWE Crown Jewel and Monday Night Raw.”

It sure is interesting that Power Slap, which is not officially owned by TKO is included in the TKO Fight Week package available to governments with millions to spend. Zach Arnold predicted this would happen under the guise of “Fight Weeks” in his article last December.

4. The Anti-trust case has still not settled

In March, the UFC thought they had settled the anti-trust suit with both classes of fighters for $335 million.

Then in July, the judge in the case rejected the settlement and has since set a firm trial date of February 2025 for the Le vs Zuffa case.

We know that Dana is a betting man and there’s a chance the UFC will flat out win the case and pay nothing.

There’s also a chance the fighters will win — and something tells me they’ll win more than $335M.

5. UFC at the Sphere

Last November, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Dana’s big announcement after UFC 295:

The first sporting event inside the Sphere could occur in September, thanks to UFC CEO Dana White’s self-admitted obsession with the new venue.

White said he has booked the Sphere — the $2.3 billion, 17,500-seat entertainment venue, which opened in late September — for a UFC card for Mexican Independence Day. Fights are scheduled Sept. 14.

White said in a post-fight news conference for UFC 295 on Nov. 11 in New York’s Madison Square Garden that once he saw events at the Sphere, he knew he had to arrange something for UFC there.

“I’m super-excited about this,” White said at the news conference. “I love challenges. Everybody keeps saying to me, ‘I don’t know how you’re going to put the octagon in there. I don’t understand how you’re going to do this. I don’t understand how you’re going to do that.’ Remember that I said this to you tonight, I’m going to put on the greatest live combat sports show anybody’s ever seen.”

Two months ago Dana told Shannon Sharpe just how expensive a challenge putting on a UFC show at the Sphere was:

I’m already $16 million into this thing. This will never be replicated. Anybody who comes in after me into The Sphere is (expletive). We’re working on [the card] and tweaking it every day. Everybody should want to be on that card. Believe me when I tell you, everybody was all fired up about UFC 300. This thing is going to be, you know, and again, if you are Mexican and you are on this, it’s just going to be like nothing anybody’s ever seen before.

Only days later, they announced that they’d found a money mark to cover the ballooning costs.

Then they announced the card. Fan response, as represented by MMA Guru, was extraordinarily inflammatory and negative:

It needs to get in your head as an MMA fan they don't give a fuck about us anymore. They've got us as a fan base. [UFC] don't fucking care about us anymore, which is why they're shitting out APEX events.

It's all this stupid bald fuck that sold his stake in the company and he's fucking destroying it. The UFC has taken loss after loss. I'm sick and tired of it.

You bend the fuck over for Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia while we get dog shit.

And now ticket sales, or the lack thereof are telling a tale.

If even the notorious UFC shill (and proud TKO investor) formerly known as Front Row Brian is knocking the card, you know it’s a miss.

This has to be hurting Dana internally with the TKO brass.

By his own account, the Sphere show was “his obsession.” He knew mounting the show would be a huge challenge but I don’t think he planned to go nearly $20 million in the hole. Now he had to rope in the Saudis to sponsor his UFC Sphere on 9/11 week to cover the costs.

And I’m certain none of them anticipated that tickets would be moving this slowly.

In the Endeavor era, Dana White and the UFC have gotten away with pawning off whatever slop they could come up with on fans and their long-suffering media partner ESPN.

It may be that Dana has finally bitten off more than he can chew.