How Ariel Helwani Got Over on Dana White

And how Endeavor will try to crush Uncrowned under their flywheel

Now that we’re eight years into the Dana White vs. Ariel Helwani feud, it’s easy to forget that Ariel got all of his biggest career boosts from his very friendly relationship with the UFC CEO.

I discussed this salient point in last week’s column on Ariel’s new MMA venture Uncrowned.com, referencing the 2011 moment when Dana and the UFC flew Helwani (then with MMAFighting.com) for an interview to pre-empt ESPN’s Josh Gross from breaking the news that the UFC had bought Strikeforce.

The video below collects a few “cute” moments from their early years working together.

Dana liked Ariel because he wasn’t interested in rocking the boat. Ariel had (and still has) very little apparent interest in kind of topics that upset the UFC brass: the business workings behind the sport, monopolization, fighter pay, PEDs, fighter health, etc.

Ariel had little interest in or knowledge of the actual sport and a great deal of interest in pro-wrestling-style drama.

He also really loved being the first to announce UFC match-ups.

But otherwise, he was perfectly happy to play ball with the UFC.

He also displayed an almost supernatural ability to tolerate verbal abuse and physical intimidation from fighters like Rampage Jackson and Nick Diaz.

Over time, Dana’s interactions with Ariel took on that same bully/victim dynamic with a strange undercurrent of sadomasochism, cuckoldry, and public humiliation.

Then, Mr. Helwani’s obsession with being the first to report on big match-ups conflicted with the UFC’s obsession with controlling the narrative. This clash of narratives resulted in the blowup that made Helwani’s journalistic reputation.

Here’s how Stephen Brunt of Canada’s Sportsnet described Ariel to his non-MMA fan mainstream audience in the video at the top of this post:

(Ariel Helwani is the) leading journalist covering the UFC and all of MMA. If you're not a fan of MMA though you really should know him, at least know his story.

He's a kid from Montreal who carved out a career reporting about a sport that was being born as he was covering it.

Dana White is the all-powerful head of that company. They treat the media differently than other sports do, almost as an extension of the company.

And if they don't like you they can make you go away. They can squeeze you out. They can prevent you from doing your job.

Ariel Helwani has managed to straddle that line to cover the sport honestly and bravely, to raise the hackles of the people who run it at times and still be a really courageous and really first-rate journalist.

I guarantee you, Dana White did not anticipate that his attempt to destroy Ariel the way he’d destroyed or damaged the careers of so many other reporters would result in the creation of one of his strongest and longest-lasting enemies.

Dana certainly didn’t anticipate that Ariel would use his willingness to express vulnerability, the exact cringing cuck posture that drew the contempt of every bully in MMA, to win the battle of the lost credentials.

This Washington Post headline from the time captures the dynamic perfectly, accompanied as it was by a still-shot of a tearful Helwani crying on a courageous/cringe-y MMA Hour:

And when Ariel signed on at ESPN at the same time that the UFC finally partnered with the network, Dana was pissed.

As Ariel described it on Pablo Torre Finds Out:

The worst thing to happen for our relationship actually was me going to ESPN. Because for Dana White, getting to ESPN, that was his North Star. That’s what he always wanted.  It was huge for them, and he gets there and me, I’m standing there. I’m the new MMA reporter that they just hired … he freaked out.

They tried to make my life at ESPN so difficult. They were obsessed with getting all the scoops away from me, and making my life difficult, making me feel unwelcome … It drove them nuts that I’m at the event, representing ESPN with that microphone.

Ultimately, though the UFC managed to cut Ariel’s ESPN career short.

But, they couldn’t silence him or even seriously impact his popularity and influence.

I know this is gonna sound farcical, but it’s like something out of Shakespeare or a Greek tragedy.

Dana White handpicked Ariel Helwani as his favorite on-camera MMA reporter largely because of Helwani’s disinclination to rock the boat and his submissive persona.

The UFC spent years building up Ariel: hand-feeding him scoops; hiring him to cover the UFC at Fox Sports (and making sure he knew his paychecks were coming from the UFC); pushing his Twitter feed on broadcast after broadcast.

Little did they know they were building their own nemesis.

The irony of Ariel using that very pose of weakness so despised by the bullies of MMA to beat Dana White and transform himself from company shill to “the best and bravest reporter in the sport” is pretty dang rich.

Now Ariel is betting his profile and reputation to launch the most ambitious combat sports web property anyone has attempted in years.

You know Dana’s gotta be hating this.

But Dana White hasn’t been the final boss of the UFC in eight years and it will be Ari Emanuel and Endeavor/TKO that Ariel will have to contend with.

Paying subscribers can read more on the strategies they’ll use to make sure Uncrowned.com never becomes a threat to Endeavor’s control of the UFC story.