Dana White ordered to testify at UFC antitrust hearing

Merry Christmas!

US Federal judge Richard Boulware

On Tuesday afternoon, US Federal Judge Richard Boulware issued a court order requesting UFC President Dana White & long-time UFC in-house attorney Legal Department official Tracy Long to testify under oath.

The hearing, scheduled for February 4th and 5th, pertains to discovery and evidentiary disputes between plaintiffs and defendants in multiple UFC antitrust cases.

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Here is the text of Judge Boulware’s status update/court order from Tuesday:

MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS - Status Conference held on 12/18/2025 before Judge Richard F. Boulware, II. Crtrm Administrator: D Smith; Pla Counsel: Michael Dell'Angelo, Patrick Madden, and Jeremy Gradwohl, Daniel Gifford, Itak Moradi, Michael Gayan; Def Counsel: Aaron Chiu, Joseph Axelrad, Robert Medina, Adam Peterson, Colby Williams, Sam Mirkovich; Court Reporter: P Ganci; Time of Hearing: 10:55 - 11:35; Courtroom: 7C;

Parties are present as represented above; the Court makes preliminary remarks and hears from counsel regarding the appeal in the Cirkunovs case and how it affects these proceedings.

Further, the Court and the Parties discuss the logistics of the forthcoming spoliation proceedings in all three cases, namely: witnesses, expected testimony, and other information reflected on the record.

Pursuant to this discussion, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED the Spoilation Hearing is set for February 4th and February 5th of 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Mr. Dana White will testify first and then Ms. Tracy Long.

Defendants are instructed to file supplemental briefing, as described on the record, on the potential impact of attorney client privilege by December 30, 2025.

An additional hearing is set for January 6, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. to address: this Courts jurisdiction over Cirkunovs, outstanding discovery disputes, and the scope of this Courts spoliation proceedings.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED the Parties should be prepared to discuss the proper allocation of fees and expenses stemming from Plaintiffs Motion to Compel (Johnson, ECF No. 234). Plaintiffs are also instructed to file a brief list of authorities regarding this Courts jurisdiction by December 19, 2025. The Parties are also instructed to file a Joint Status Report, no more than 4 pages per side, listing outstanding discovery issues to be addressed at this hearing by December 30, 2025.

This just got very real for UFC.

Let’s do a quick-and-dirty summary of possibilities presented by this brand new development.

Dana White on the witness stand answering questions from Judge Boulware.

This is a nightmarish scenario. Anyone who has watched Dana White’s public performance in 2025 at UFC events understands that he is largely unfocused and not as sharp as he used to be. It’s one of the reasons why we call him the Brand Ambassador.

We already have a clue about how Dana performs under public scrutiny, as displayed when Sean Zittel grilled him during the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford pre-fight presser about the Ali Reform Act.

Judge Boulware is not an uninterested interlocutor. He will be well-prepared during questioning on both the facts and the law.

Anything Dana White says can and will be used against him. And if he doesn’t answer a question forthrightly? It could plausibly create a scenario where Judge Boulware utilizes it in some fashion as part of an adverse finding by the Court.

Outside of Ali Abdelaziz testifying, Dana White testifying is one of the worst case scenarios for TKO management.

Tracy Long knows a lot of major UFC secrets.

I do not expect many fireworks to ignite between her and Judge Boulware. However, this is the first time that anyone outside of the fight business will get a sneak peek at one of the most important caretakers of UFC.

Tracy Long has been listed for many years as the person for fighters and their representatives to contact directly regarding matters associated with the UFC Athletic Conduct Policy.

Judge Boulware focusing on Tracy Long puts a bullseye squarely on UFC’s attorneys Legal Department and their record keeping practices.

Things just got uncomfortable.

Preparing for sanctions?

The last part of Judge Boulware’s court order on Tuesday makes it clear that he wants a monetary value assessment on Plaintiff’s costs related to their current fight to obtain discovery from UFC.

More importantly, it also signals a potential pathway for Judge Boulware to re-combine the current ongoing UFC antitrust cases.

How? Instead of arguing about the law, Judge Boulware is fact finding. If he determines that UFC (TKO) destroyed evidence or was not truthful about evidence preservation, it creates a difficult pathway for UFC to avoid.

If UFC is found to have destroyed critical evidence, then it goes to both the heart of intent and illegality. If allegations regarding evidence tampering, destruction, or evasion can be determined by the Court, then it creates a hypothetical scenario for Judge Boulware to rule that UFC’s current arbitration clauses and class-action waivers are both unenforceable and unconscionable under Nevada law.

The ghost of Carl Icahn

You could create a thousand different conspiracy theories as to why UFC has been fighting discovery requests with so much vigor in this current antitrust litigation.

One of those theories might involve TKO’s concerns about what kind of discovery activist investor Carl Icahn could get his hands on — and how many billions of dollars it could potentially cost them in separate class-action litigation in Delaware Chancery Court.

Here’s an excerpt I wrote about that litigation a couple of months ago:

While UFC’s legal team may deem the current antitrust fight to be less about money and more about ongoing business practices, TKO very much understands how much money it could cost them to settle with Mr. Icahn over Endeavor’s take-private transaction.

Mr. Icahn has the financial resources to fight TKO. He is in a position to utilize any and all discovery from the UFC antitrust case and apply such information to create big leverage.

Looks like The Grinch may have stolen Dana’s Christmas, after all.

Zach Arnold is the lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw Newsletter on Substack. You can e-mail him at fightopinion - at - protonmail dot com.