Transcript for #421 – Dana White: UFC, Fighting, Khabib, Conor, Tyson, Ali, Rogan, Elon & Zuck

I think so. I remember being at my grandmother's house. I think it was an alley fight and all my uncles were going crazy during the fight and it was just a buzz in this energy and the house that I liked at a very young age, and I'm pretty sure that was my first fight. Ali was something special. Yeah, incredible. I mean, when you look around, not just here in the office, but at my house, Ali and Tyson are everywhere.

Well, I would put Ali as the greatest all-time human being. I mean, when you, it's easy, it's a fight fan to focus on him. as a fighter, but when you focus on him as a human, and you think about what he meant at that time in place, the things he said, the poems he came up with, you know, just the overall brilliance of Muhammad Ali, the guts. the guts to have the strength mentally physically and emotionally to go against the grain at the time that he did it was a very dangerous time for him to be who he was. Because of how smart he was and because of his personality and how if you sat down with him, you could be the biggest racist on the planet. It's hard to get in the room with Oli and not like Oli.

He might be one of the All-time greatest humans, you know what I mean? Just an impactful, powerful human being who happened to be a great boxer.

I agree with you and he was the right guy in the right place at the right time and he's also a guy who used his platform for all the right things.

Yeah, I would say I've really fell in love with it. So I was a senior. It was 1987 and Hagler Leonard happened. Yeah. And I watched that fight and I taped it and I watched that fight like a million times. I was a huge, huge haggler fan. And I like Sugar Ray Leonard too, but I was a huge haggler fan. And, you know, I just remember, I watched that fight a million times because I was pissed off and I felt like haggler got robbed in the fight. You know what I mean? But that was really what made me start to love the sport of boxing. The battle of it. Like, yeah. I was 17. And then after that, U.S.A. 's Tuesday Night Fights came out, on television, on every Tuesday night, religiously never missed Tuesday Night Fights. I was there, watched all those fights, and a lot of the things you see in the UFC, not necessarily just the production, but I would say the feel in the style and all those things that I things that I loved about boxing and things that I hated about boxing right down to the commentary you loved and hated hated the yeah hated the comment certain things that I loved about boxing I incorporated into the UFC things that I hated about boxing I made sure that the UFC stayed far away from I think I can't stand Larry Merchant can't stand that immersion and I used to watch HBO boxing and mute the commentary so that I didn't have to listen to them. Um, Lampleto, uh, you know, you would you would spend this money for the paper view to watch these people that you idolized to hear these idiots rip them apart while the fight was happening. You know, they were criticized.

I want to do this with you right now. Hey, we bring your cell phone over here and pull up YouTube. I want to do this for you so that you, you can understand this and understand where I was coming from for the commentary. At this point in time, I have all good memories. You're going to ruin it for me. Yeah, no, there are nothing but great memories about boxing, but the presentation and a lot of the things, but it's how fucking weird is it that I even cared about this shit at that point in my life and that time in my life? Like what impact could I possibly have on it? So think about Tyson and how much everybody love Tyson at the time. And listen to this.

The baddest motherfucking walk ends of all time, by the way. Right. So what this guy should be doing? And this is one of the Albert brothers. Yeah. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. Stay out of the way. Yeah.

Or that. Or don't say anything. Just let the fence. That's why we paid our money.

Right. You page your money, watch Mike Tyson, and you got to listen to these fucking jerk-offs talk shit about him the whole way to the right. First of all, one of the coolest walk-ins ever. You know, first time anybody had heard DMX. Right. And he's walking into some scary, imposing music. Will it even matter? Well, you know, it's just all that kind of stuff. I do literally use to analyze every ounce of the production that would happen on television and at a time when I didn't even know why I was doing it but but it's in there somewhere like you were thinking about it right so yeah I hated HBO commentary I thought you know at the time HBO boxing was obviously the gold standard for you know, but when you really think about boxing at that time that production the only thing to change over 30 years was like HD I mean even the commentators were the same for for 30 years and then you had the time when Larry merchant gets up and literally starts fighting with Floyd Mayweather during the interview and says if I was 30 years younger, I'd kick your ass right now. I remember that. I mean, these are the interviews that we have to listen to. When we're trying to watch a boxing match, the level of boxing was good. Think about a fighter, right? Fighter has been gone for months, way from their families and way from everything, training, cutting weight, sparring, then they go in and they have to fight that night. And then you have to, you know, if you watch your fight back, you got to listen to this bullshit, from these guys and then, and then you get interviewed and your interview is, is this?

So you know who goes in there and interviews fighters, Joe Rogan, right? Who is trained and done everything and has the utmost respect for the sport and the athletes, or You got like Daniel Kormier who is a former world champion himself and has actually been through it done it knows and those are the type of people that we put in the booth people that are actually experienced in it not not Not these people who've never been in a fight in their fucking life, right?

Well, everybody does. I mean, if you look at it, it's the difference between our commentary and what I feel their commentary was. We don't hire paid talking heads. We hire people that have actually been in it, done it, love it, and are super passionate about the sport. And I would say that none of them that ever covered the sport back then were, I don't know if that was Mar Valbert, what Albert brother that was, but he sounded like he's a fan of the sport or anyway. You got me, you got me on this and at least I could not let it. I lose my mind.

It would be different. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. It would be different. There's no doubt about it. All those experiences growing up being a boxing fan help create what the UFC is today.

I agree with you 100%. The first UFC happened in 1993, right? Marshall Art versus Marshall Art. Yeah. And now over the last 30 years, Marshall Arts has evolved faster than, you know what I mean? And like you just said, combat sports fighting, whatever you want to call it martial arts, it has evolved so much in 30 years more than the last 300 years.

I remember everybody talking that this fight was going to happen and there was going to be no rules and all this other stuff and we're like there's no way that's bullshit. And then we ended up with some guys house that night in Boston and watching it and it was happening. And it was fun and it was exciting and everything else. And then I sort of fell off after that. The first one I watched, but I was too big of a boxing fan. Plus once grappling started taking over and you know, by grappling, meaning the wrestling and the just two guys just laid there, you know, I completely lost interest. It's funny that I'm having this conversation with you right now because last night, I was out last night with my friends and we were talking about, um, because one, one of my buddies who's a host here in town just did jujitsu for the first time. Nice. Yesterday. Yeah. And he was like, did he get his ass kicked? Yeah. But when you first go in, our first jujitsu less than me, Lorenzo Frank was with John Lewis. Nice. And I remember thinking, holy shit. I can't believe that I'm 28 years old. And this is the first time I'm experiencing this, that another human being could do this to me on the ground. It is such an eye-opening mind-blowing experience when you do it for the first time. And then you become completely addicted to it. And we were trained in three, four days a week, trying to kill each other and me and the fatitas. That's how we fell in love with the sport. I think that, first time you do jujitsu, it's like the red pill and the blue pill and the matrix. Do you want to believe that this is the world that you live in? Or do you want to see what the real world looks like?

And I mean dominate. I mean completely treat you like you're a little kid. And then we had the opportunity to roll with a lot of different guys at the time because of the whatever. And we don't have a good relationship at all, but I'll tell you this, Frank Shamrock came in one day and Frank Shamrock had me in a side control. The pressure that this guy put on my chest made me tap. I felt like I got there was a car on my chest. with zero effort from him. It was absolutely effortless. And when you train with somebody that's at such a level when you're not, it's just, it is the most humbling mind blowing experience you can have, especially as a man, but as a human being.

Yeah, so you know, we first started out and started doing it. How to pretty good guillotine. So I catch a lot of people in guillotines and they're okay being on like I'm bottom. So like yeah, I was okay with a lot of me. Yeah, I was okay with being on bottom. I was comfortable there. But you know what I never liked. I never liked ghee. Like we started fucking around with the ghee in the beginning. We, you know, that's how we started. And then once I took the ghee off, I felt like I had no submissions because I couldn't grab on to anything. So after that, I went all no gear and I never wanted to wear a gear.

Yeah. I mean, if you if you if you start off in your first year is you're in a guise. I mean you better hope guys got like winter jackets on or something that's something happened in the street because in my opinion and all that you just who fucking people gonna go crazy over this but in my opinion No, it gives way better than gig.

like these guys like Ken Shamrock that were jacked right and you had all these wrestlers or you know the big massive guys that they had in the different way classes in this skinny little dude like hoist was out there beat in everybody. I mean if you look at the way the the Gracie's played that you couldn't have a better advertisement for for Gracie to just do at the time. But also like

What's the real beautiful thing about your kids? It's like, when you talk about, if you wanted to get your daughter into a martial art, should I put my daughter into karate, should I put her into this? You put your daughter into your jutsu 100%. Because it's not about size or strength, it's about technique. And you give your daughter a bunch of jutsu and a little bit of muitai. Yeah, it should become dangerous. It's like the perfect combo. Yeah. Because you can put your son into anything. Your son can get into something. You know, boys are going to learn how to fight and they're going to do whatever. But girls are different. And the other thing, I mean, this is the biggest selling point. for it's just who for women. I mean, when a woman no matter how big house mall can put a guy to sleep in three and a half seconds.

It started with John Lewis, and seeing him Frank and I were out one night at the hard rock, and John Lewis was there. And he's like, oh, that's that ultimate fighting guy. And I was like, I know him. And Frank's like, I've always wanted to learn ground fighting. And I said, yeah, I'm interested in it too. So we went over, we talked to John Lewis, and we made an appointment to wrestle with him on Monday. Yeah. And we told the Ranzo and the Ranzo came with us. And that was the beginning of the end. I mean, we started doing suggested and started to meet a lot of the fighters. And we were like, you know, at the time, there was a stigma attached to the sport that these guys were, you know, despicable, disgusting human beings, which was the first thing from the truth. These kids had all gone to college, had college degrees most of them, because they wrestled in college. And we started to meet some that we loved the different stories. Yeah, Chuck LaDelle, who, you know, had this Mohawk looks like an ax murder, but graduated from Cal Poly, you know, with honors and accounting, you know, then you had Matt Hughes, who was this farm boy, you know, literally lived on a farm. And so there were all these cool stories with all these good people that weren't what people thought they were. And Lorenzo and I always felt like there's something here that if this thing was done the right way, this could be big. And what was crazy was I was in a contract negotiation with Bob Myrwitz, the old owner of the UFC, over Tito's contract. And Chuck LaDell. They didn't even want Chuck LaDell in the UFC. Well, I was trying to get Chuck and UFC and they didn't even want them. And we got into this contract dispute over Tito's contract and Bob Myrwitz said, you know what? There is no more money, okay? I don't even know if I'll even be able to put on one more event. And he like flipped out. When we hung up the phone, I literally picked up the phone and called the runs and I said, hey, I just got off the phone, Bob Meyer is the owner of the UFC. I think they're in trouble. And I think we could buy it. And I think we should, you should reach out to him. So the Renzo, the Renzo called Myrwitz. And I don't know how I don't remember the timeline, but within the next two months, we ended up owning the UFC for two million bucks.

I mean the early days of building this company and building this board, it was the Wild Wild West man, it was crazy back then. Yeah, I was literally at war every day with all different types of people. Plus, traditionally there's bad people that are involved in fighting man, lots of bad people. And we had to sift our way through that for the first seven eight years.

Let me tell you about this. I mean, I want to say it was the Netherlands. I don't remember exactly where it could have been Amsterdam. I mean, MMA promoters were like car bombing each other and the other guy shot up the other guy's house with machine guns and that's the kind of shit that was going on. I'll tell you the story. So a fliction, do you remember a fliction? Yeah. So that was a guy. I want to say, I want to say the name was Tom Todd Beer or something like that. This guy used to text me every day when they started their MMA thing and telling me he was going to kill me. Like legit and really legit. You don't make any kill me. Yeah. You punk motherfucker. I'm gonna fucking kill you. You don't understand who I am and what I've done. And this and I think this guy would get drunk or do drugs every night or whatever his deal was. This guy would call me tax me and threaten my life every day. I used to go fuck you and this time. Oh yeah, especially back then. Yeah, but yeah, but I mean that this is the type of shit that went on in the early days. This guy, this guy who was one of the owners of a friction was like one of the, you know, not a good human. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, we weren't making money. So, you know, trying to build this thing, corrupt, corrupt the guys that work for in demand paper view at the time. We're not good dudes, you know, and that thing was a fucking total monopoly. God, I wish I could remember his name right now. He used to run into man and he was a fucking bad guy. Then he then he comes over and starts running direct TV, who we always had a great relationship with. And he's the reason we left direct TV and said, fuck, it will just go streaming then. Yeah, I don't remember his name. I'd have to ask Lorenzo.

Everybody you deal with is dealing with a lot of a lot of different forces and your your hands are in a lot of different businesses, you know, from the venue business to the merchandise business to the video game business, the pay-per-view business. You know, the list goes on and on of all the different types of the production business of all these different, you know, when I first started this, we had a production team that was the production team that was in it before we bought it. So there was this incident with Phil Baroney. where Phil Barrony, we did an interview with him and Barrony flips out in the interview when they're interviewing him and goes crazy and I thought it was awesome. It's home like, yeah, we're gonna leave this end. We're gonna leave this interview end in the production guys, we're arguing with me. So like we can't leave this end. This is totally unprofessional in the exercise I don't give a shit. This is what we're doing. We're gonna do this and clip it like this and do it like that. We're sitting in the venue that night. And I lean over to Lorenzo because the fights coming up I go, wait, you see this fucking interview with Peroni. They didn't fucking do it. net in doing these guys were guys that were freelance guys that work for show time at the time or one of the something like that I literally went got up for my fucking seat went back to kick the fucking door of the truck open and I said you mother fuckers you ever do that again and I'll fire every fucking one of you let's just put it this way ended up firing every one of them anyway and and going with a whole new crew but the these were the type of things that early on you know there's so much stuff I mean I could sit here for fucking Three days and walk you through all the stuff that used to go on back in those days. But it was the Wild Wild West man.

Getting it in the early days, there was two employees. Me and another girl that worked for me from my company before I started doing this. And then we slowly started to bring people on and you start to build a team. Then before you know it, we had ten people. I mean, we used to do our Christmas parties back then, too. There'd be eight to ten people at our Christmas party, you know. But a lot of it is, uh, you'll learn as you go. You know, you know what me and the fatitas knew about production when we bought this UFC. We had like, I want to say we had two or three weeks to pull off an event. This is what we knew about production. Jack shit. So we had to dive in and we had to learn it. We had to figure it out and we, um, we knew what we wanted. We knew what we liked. We knew what we were looking for. Um, it's just about building, building a good team. And I think that's one of the things if you want to, Talk about what I've accomplished in the last, you know, 25 years of my life. I've been really good at building teams.

100%. Well, you have to have the vision. Without the vision, there's nothing. So that's sort of what I do. I am the vision part of this thing. We're going to open a PI in Mexico. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And then you build the team to come in and help execute.

Well, the secret to success. I would say First of all is passion and consistency. You have to love what you do. You have to get up every day. I get here every day at 9.30 in the morning. When we sold In 2016, a lot of people in the company made a lot of money and they all took off and they retired. Other than the fatitas, I made the most money. I'm still here. I get here at 930 every morning, last night I left here at 830. You know, I don't know how late I'm going to be here tonight, but I love what I do. We get up every day and grind. I work just as hard now as I did back then. The difference between back then and now is I don't have to do a bunch of the shit that I don't really like to do like budget meetings. I don't like budget meetings. I sat through enough fucking budget meetings. I'm horrible budget meetings. We're losing millions of dollars a year. And I'm in these budget meetings. So I get to pick and choose what I do these days. Back in the early days, you don't get to pick and choose. You have to be involved in everything. Yeah. So costs. You're just looking at costs. You literally go through line by line. every fucking number in the company and where do the money go and how can we save costs? How can we do this better? How can we, you know, they are, they are brutal and they're multiple times a week and probably helps to deeply appreciate how much the shit costs though. 100% what you have to know that in the early days when you start your business, you have these people who when I hear them say, you know what? I want to work for myself. I want to create my own schedule and I want to do all day. It's just, if that's your thought process going into it, you're never going to be successful. You have to pay attention to every single detail of the business early on. You're involved in everything. There's no days off. There's no birthdays. There's no fucking Christmas. There's none of that shit. I literally moved the birth of my second son for a chocolate elf fight. We had a chocolate elf fight coming up. And they're like, yeah, your son's going to be born in this date. And I'm like, yeah, that's not going to work. and we're gonna have to take them earlier. So they literally gave my wife a sea section and took my son early. You're all in.

Yeah. I was doing this when I was broke. Yeah. And I'm doing this now and I'm not broke. I'm doing this because I love it. And I feel like there's so much more to do. And this is truly my passion and life. It's like this fear. We're doing this fear. Why? Why would I do this fear? It's going to cost me a bunch of money. It's really challenging. Most people think it can't be pulled off and you're looking at weird angles, different things going on inside other than the fight and all the stuff. Yeah, I'm doing it because it's awesome. And it's challenging and it's hard. And I think that if anybody can do it right, it's us. So why not take that challenge?

There's many puzzles to solve for the show.

Yeah, so there's a lot. So you have the octagon, right? And then behind it is the world's biggest screen ever, right? So what is the theme? How do you program it? First of all, it's a super expensive to shoot and the format for the sphere. Angles, we were talking about today, I just had a big meeting today about the sphere this afternoon and making sure that all my departments, all the details that I want I'll start to come together here in the next two weeks. I want the creative, the commercial. I have some goals. I will tell people as we get closer what I'm looking to achieve with this other than putting on one of the greatest most unique sporting events of all time and probably the greatest combat sporting event of all time. But yeah, there's, I mean, there's challenges. There's a laundry list of challenges for this thing. And not to mention the fact that it's on a Mexican independence day. And we're going to weave in the whole history of combat in Mexico. Yeah.

It'll be live on paper view. It'll be live in the arena and it will also be in movie theaters. Nice.

Like will you try to be doing a doc on it? Nice. The making of the sphere. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I feel incredible about it. I can't wait.

It's the fact he doesn't care about money and he did the first 13 shows for free for us. You know what I mean? That was at a time when we were hurting and he's like, wait a minute, you want me to do the commentary? You're saying that I get to sit in the best seat in the house and watch these fights. Yeah, I'm in. And then obviously when we turn things around, we made it up to Joe. But Joe is one of the things that I loved early on about. So I'll tell you the story. So we buy the UFC. They're based in New York. We're moving the corporate offices to Vegas. So I have to fly out to New York, go into the offices and start going through everything and figuring out what needs to come back to Vegas and what we can just throw away. So they literally had a VHS machine and a TV and there were a million tapes in this place, man. So I didn't know what tapes were that these definitely would have to keep or these we don't need so I just sit there and go through every single tape and I popped in a tape and there was an interview on the ivory keen and way and show right the oldest way and brother and get a talk show at the time and he had Joe Rogan the guy from fear factor on the show and he was promoting fear factor but all he would talk about was UFC and he was talking about how People think that these guys in the martial arts movies are tough and cool and was talking about what UFC fighters would do to these these martial arts guys if they ever got their hands on them and I was like this is exactly what I need a guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind, and knows the sport inside and out, but more importantly, is super passionate about it and loves it. So when you see Joe Rogan on camera, and I was talking about the paid dock talking heads that they had in HBO boxing that were terrible, Joe Rogan does not come off as a paid talking head. He comes off as a guy who loves this. And so early on, no media would cover us. So I had to buy my way onto radio. So we do these radio tours, right? And they would drop us in, you'd have to get up at 330 in the morning in Vegas on the West Coast. And they'd cause that there at 630 in the morning in New York and Boston and Florida and all these other places. So they drop you into these markets to do radio, right? And the fighters were horrible at it. Fighters getting up at 330 in the morning, especially leading up to a fight. Never good. They sound like they're tired, they act like they're tired, and they definitely act like they don't want to be on there. And it's bad radio. What you can't have is bad radio. So the only two people that could pull off these radio tours were me and Joe Rogan. So me and Joe Rogan would alternate. doing these radio tours all over the country is talking about fighting talking about what this whole thing is like getting people excited to guys that are really into it and passionate about it and love it and and and and it's one of the things about Rogan too when when early on nobody understood the ground game Joe Rogan would walk you through what was happening literally before it would happen. He would tell you the setup what was going to come next and everything. You just absolutely articulate it perfectly, brilliantly, and people at home started to understand. And the impact that Joe Rogan has had and continues to have on this sport is immeasurable. He's the biggest podcaster in the world. And he is on the UFC. uh... paper views you know fourteen times a year and he's always talking about the sport it's a measurable um... what this guy has has has done for this company in the sport yes till to this day like i've dinner with them offline it was just talk fighting just loves it sure loves every aspect of it yeah jol roganis is is one of those guys i saw that early on when why would you go after the fear factor guy Yeah, you know, to be such a key component, to not only the company, but to the sport, I saw it in the fucking interview, and I've already keen on wins.

Anybody who is with me, has been with me? No. When you're with me, you're with me. It's a two-way street. It's not a one-way street. I'm not one of these guys that is kind of roll over and it's like going through COVID. I wasn't laying any of these people. Some of these people have been with me for 20 years. We're going to lay them off. This motherfucker will burn. burn before I would do that to my people. It's just it's just never that none of that type of stuff is ever going to happen while I'm here. I can't say what's going to happen when I leave, but when I'm here, the people who were with me and have been with me, they know exactly what's up and Joe knows what's up. And it's and again, it's a two-way street. Joe Rogan has been very loyal to me and I am very loyal to Joe Rogan.

I love them. Lorenzo and I work really well together because we have two different personalities, right? I'm the guy that always, I'm going here. Lorenzo is always here, right? You could walk in a room and say Lorenzo, you just lost $10 million. Lorenzo, he's just $110 million. it never changes. And I'm a guy that goes like that, right? So we almost balance each other out. There's a lot of things that he's really fucking good at. And there's a lot of things that I'm really fucking good at. And they're both on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

100%. What's incredible when you think of the story of the UFC? At the time, the casino business was cranking, right? And station casinos was killing it. And stations, their money from stations is what was funding the UFC. Then in the 089 crash. the UFC was killing it in 08-09, and, you know, the casino businesses were hurting. So timing on everything, the way that it all worked out, couldn't have worked out better for them, and obviously for all of us. When you think about the UFC and how big it is, and how far it reaches, and how many people it touches, the fatitas brothers made a $2 million investment. then put in like another 44 million and look at how many lives that investment has changed over the last 25 years.

It created a whole new sport that people all over the world participate in now. Literally, there isn't a place on earth that we can't get a fighter from now.

So behind the scenes, fighters are a very paranoid bunch of people. They're very paranoid. and there's been this this this theme with fighters where they're trying to get me beat right we don't determine who wins and loses if we did we'd be the WWE okay um you do I'm the bells and whistles guy. I make sure that as many people that we can possibly let know that you're fighting on Saturday, know that you're fighting on Saturday, who you are, who you're going against, and why people should give a shit. That's what I do, right? Then the night you show up, I put on the best live event that I possibly can, and I put on the best television show that I possibly can. Once that door shuts, it's all up to you. You determine whether you lose or not. And if you get into a position where you become so paranoid, that you think that the powers that be here are against you. And you try to steer yourself away from certain fights. And that's one of the big things that happens in these other organizations. And these other organizations The inmates run the asylum, right? So if they don't want to fight bad enough, these other companies don't push and they don't do this and they don't, we put on the best possible matchups that we can make. And in this business, you might be an older fighter. But if you're still ranked in the top 10, there's young guys coming for you. Killers, young killers are coming out and they want your position. Right? So you being the veteran that you are, have to prepare yourself to go in and, you know, everybody was saying when we made that fight with Saint Denis, that poor A was in big trouble. That's awesome. That helps build the entire thing that poor A and then poor A goes out and does what he did that night. That's what makes fucking legends.

Especially when you're a big name and a name that people recognize and a name that people know and you know and they're like, oh man, I remember Israel Autosignan and Sean Strickly. 100 out of 100 people knew for a fact. That Israel is going to win that fight. Yeah. And here comes Strickland. And we could go on for days with this. You know what I mean? That is what creates legendary moments, legendary fights, and it's what builds stars and legends.

Yep. Potomacracca with a bunch of people in the beginning. People said he couldn't wrestle. People said he wouldn't be able to defend to take down. Um, blah, blah, blah. Nate Diaz against Potomacracca. You know what I mean?

And if you look at the way that Habib ran through so many people, Connor hung in there, you know, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, at the time, I was incredibly criticized for putting together the spot that had the, the scene with the boss in it. Oh, yeah. You know, yeah, the fucking media is, but they were saying that was pandering to the, you know, to the violence that happened and trying to, I'm telling you a story. telling you a story of how we got here and how big this fight is and how bad the blood is between these guys. And I mean, I think that's what we do. The best job at is telling the fucking stories of why we go into Monday. It's fight week. We got a whole list of things that we do in the fight week, right? And then you get right down to the press conference on Thursday, the weigh-ins on Friday and then the fights on Saturday. Now my people fly back home to go to bed on Sunday night and it's groundhog day. We wake up again on Monday and it starts all over again. Every weekend, every Saturday for a year. So there's lots of stories that need to be told. There's lots of When you think about what I compete with, whatever takes your attention on a Saturday night is my competitor.

That's exactly right. So when we are online, like when you get to the UFC, I mean, you just saw it with MVP. You're going to see it with Kayla Harris and so many others that have come from other organizations and they get here. they notice immediately the difference between fighting here and fighting wherever they were before. It's not even comparable to the impact it has on you when you leave whatever organization you're with and you come to the USA. And I think that it gives them a sense of holy shit. I can really, I mean, MVP when he came, I mean, there were probably more people at the press conference than any fight he'd ever fought in and in Belitor. You know what I mean? And you feel that energy and you feel that you feel the difference of the impact of being here. And I think it takes a lot of these guys to another level.

She's walking around like this leaves a shirt the night of the fights and holy shit. She's chacked, man.

He's never been beat. He destroyed everybody at Light Heavyweight, which at the time was the toughest weight class in the company in the sport. And then I moved up to heavyweight one easily at Heavyweight. And when you look at a guy, And you look at what he was doing outside the account at the same time, which shouldn't be part of it, shouldn't be part of the equation, but when you do, wow. John, there's no debate. Nobody can debate who's the greatest of all time. It's absolutely positively John Jones. He's never lost. Nobody has never been beaten the acting on ever.

I don't disagree. But when you've never lost, right? It's this, you've never lost. We've never found somebody. And all the other thing is that you have to put it, factor in two is longevity. How long he's because sometimes with a lot of these guys, the sport past some buy. The younger guys that are faster, this, that and the sport evolves. Nobody's been able to beat John Jones. Oh, and the other thing that you measure is, you know, when you said dominance, It's true. If you're this guy that has unbelievable power and you're just going in, you're just fucking knocking everybody out. And nobody's ever pulled you into the deep water before. That was when my opinion of John Jones started to change. Gustafson took him into the deep water. Gustafson hit him with some shitty never been hit with. Gustafson tested him and put John Jones in a place where I bet if you sat down and interviewed John Jones, going into the deep rounds of that John Jones thought he was going to die. You know what I'm saying? He's willing to go there and he kept going. He was willing willing to do whatever it took to win that fight.

That's the thing, too. And I believe that DC doesn't get the credit he deserves because of the John Jones thing when you look at DC and what he's accomplished, right? And John Jones beat him twice. It's undeniable. You can hate all you want. John Jones is the greatest of all time.

I think that he'll be had the potential to be in the running for that. He didn't, he just didn't stick around a lot. First of all, he, he had injuries that, that, that, that, that, you know, he should have been where he got a lot sooner. Had he not had the injuries that he had in the setbacks in his career, but there's no doubt. Hubeb is one of the all-time grates.

There's literally no ugly. Connor McGregor has been an incredible partner to work with. Everybody thinks that, Connor, if Connor showed up the things on time, there wouldn't be one fucking bad thing I could say about Connor.

Only being late. If you fucking said He put a gun to my fucking head, right? He said, don't lie, motherfucker. Tell me all the bad things about Connor McGregor. I'd say the guy didn't show up on time. That's it. If Connor McGregor showed up to shit on time and sometimes he does, sometimes he does. He's been a great partner. If you look at what a huge superstar he became. The fights that he was involved in. Let me tell you what Connor McGregor never did. We never walked in a room and said, Connor, this guy just fell out. We want you to fight this guy and he was like, no way. I'm not taking this fucking risk. I'm at this point in my career where my money, my this, my that, he was like, Fook it. Let's do it. You know, you don't always say, let's do it. The other thing that Connor McGregor never did, no matter how big he was or whatever it was, and we were heading into a fight. Oh, Connor, this guy just fell out. I'll don't fell out. We were looking for another. Yeah, I'll do it. But I'm going to need another fucking 200,000. I'm going to need another million dollars. I'm going to, Connor McGregor never did that kind of chicken shit. You know, bullshit kind of stuff. He never did any of that. Connor was a solid guy as you could possibly work with. Just fuck it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Literally would there's actually a scene because we were filming something. I don't know if it was embedded or what we were filming at the time. Me and Lorenzo walk into his house that he rented here in Vegas and I'm pretty sure it was when Aldo fell out and we're telling him this that and we're looking at some options. He says, I'm going to the gym. When I'm done working out, let me know. You just woke up out of bed. He's in this fucking underwear. And he gets hit with this. And he's like, all right, I'm going to the gym. Let me know when I get out who I'm fighting. Doesn't care. Doesn't want to know. Doesn't want any more money. Nothing. Fucking shows up and he delivers. Yeah. So, you know, Connor has been incredibly successful. He's made a lot of money and, you know, he's had his ups and downs outside and inside the octagon. But as for a guy who was, you know, on the dole and was a plumber, he's actually a really smart businessman. He's been one of the best partners that I've ever had in the history of the sport.

Yep, he literally set Europe, Australia, Canada, and many other parts of the world on fire. And he was our first legit Megastar.

But it comes with success. When you're successful, there's always people out there that are going to talk shit. You know, you always have a bunch of no-nothing, do nothing fucking losers that love the talk shit.

Yeah, I thought that listen, the thing that you can't do is avoid matchups. You know what I mean? This is what we're talking about. When you talk about being a legend, Connor McGregor needed to bebe. Habib needed Connor McGregor. It's, you can hate each other as much as you want, but you have to fight these other legendary bad motherfuckers to, to yourself become a legend. I mean, it's like John Jones needed Cyril Gont, right? And Cyril Gont needed John Jones because if Cyril could have beat John, the first guy, if anybody can ever figure it out and beat John Jones, it's a big deal. And it's almost like your obligation. as a fighter, right? And when you think about John Jones became who he is today, and the reason I'm sitting here telling you how great he is, because all these other guys gave him the opportunity to beat them, right? Or they beat John, it's all about giving these other guys the opportunity, Saint Denis, right? Pouria gave him the opportunity to come in and beat him. That's how this all works.

You have to have them both. Listen, I could line up. I could line up a bunch of no-name bombs that John Jones could run through. That's what they do in all the other organizations, right? We would have nothing to fucking talk about right now.

When you have a perfect record, you have say, holy shit. Right? Yeah.

When you can have a perfect record in the UFC, you are absolutely one of the most special athletes on planet Earth.

She's trained in the kids are trained. Yeah. Her father's the biggest fucking fight fan on the planet calls me all the time to talk about the fights and and Don Junior said that I'm like the only guy on earth that he throws out with like, you know, it's funny when you talk about how powerful fighting is, right? This last Miami event, the president of Ecuador and the president of Spain, both posted about the fights, right? Hubby Beaconner. Putin was on FaceTime before he even made it to the locker room. Trump, sitting president, ex-president, watching all the fights, calling wants to talk about the fights. Valentina Shavshenko, every time she goes home, she meets with the president of the country. The list goes on and on and on. The most powerful Elon Musk, Zuckerberg. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. The most powerful people in the world are all obsessed with fighting.

So I first discovered That Trump was a big fight fan. Obviously you saw him part of all the big talking about how big boxing fans we were, who's a part of all the big fights back then. But when we first bought the UFC, this thing was so bad, venues didn't even want us. And we ended up doing, you know, our first event in the Atlantic City at the Trump Taj Mahal. Now think about this at that time, Trump ran here UFC brand. I mean, I can't go low enough. And He had to set his venue two times back to back, showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed till the last fight of the night. Then after that, any good thing that would ever happen to me in my career, Trump would reach out, whether it was, we were on the front page of the New York Times at one time, and he said, congratulations, Dana, I always knew you guys were gonna do it, little things like that. But our big things, and mean a lot, especially coming from a guy like him.

He definitely saw it. And then comes 15, 16, whenever it was, I don't remember, But he called me and he said, listen, if you don't want to do this, I completely understand. But I would be honored if you would speak at the National Republican Convention for me. And I'm not a very political guy, you know what I mean? And everybody told me not to do it, do not do this. But I was like, why would I not do this? The sky's been great to me, you know, and I did it. and our relationship is just like, you know what I mean? I consider Donald Trump to be one of my very very good friends. And he favors stories. I mean, there's so many stories. I mean, once he won the election, like, I'd be at work. And I'd be down the hall was in the matchmaker and whatever. And my secretary, the president's on the phone. Fucking come running down the hallway and grab the phone and he'd want to talk about the fight that was coming up at the fight that happened. Or I'd be in my car and dance to the phone. It's like, hi, this is the White House. We have the president of the United States on the phone. You know, that's a trip when that first starts happening. And then just To sum him up, this is the kind of guy that you want to talk about a fighter. This is the most resilient human being I've ever met. If you see the shit that this guy's going through publicly every day, and I'll call him on the phone as a friend and be like, hey, you're good? How you doing? Unfaced. Unfaced. Like nothing's going on. And he'll start talking to me about this and that and all this other shit, one time. There's only one time I've never talked about this publicly, but one time I called him and he was not good. He was a mess and I've never heard him like that and I've never seen him like that when I've on a diet. The only time I've ever seen him fucked up. Obviously as soon as I heard it, I reached out and I have never, they look at all the stuff that's gone on with Trump, all the bad stuff that they say, they're trying to attack them, they're trying to ruin them unfazed. I call them that day and he was the first time I've ever seen that guy bust it up and, and not good.

Right. He will walk through fire. He's an absolute savage.

I don't know, man. It's going to depend on how this will. Politics is the most dirtiest scumbious thing on planet earth man and and who knows how this is all gonna play out. It's it's all dirty. It's all ugly and you know, obviously I'm rooting for him and and I'm behind him and I hope he does but we'll see what's dirtier the the fighting game in the early days or politics. There's nothing dirty in the politics nothing there's literally nothing dirty. All right. It is the dirtiest thing on planet earth.

The spectacle of it. Two of the most powerful. wealthiest man in the world, right? Lots of guys talk shit and go back and forth and sue each other and do all this. These two guys were literally talking about facing each other in the acting on and fighting. There's nothing and they're in a business that's looked at as geeky. You know what I mean? They're tech nerds, they're this, they're that. These are two dudes that were willing to throw down and fight and you know as well as I do. There's a lot of public speculation about this. I was taking serious real time and working on this thing. I mean, I had projections. I had numbers. I was looking to venues. I was on the phone with the fucking Colosseum. And Italy, you name it. I was in it. These guys were serious. And this was something that was really going to happen. And I'll tell you right now in the short amount of time that it was going down. It was fun. I was having a blast with it.

I'm not a fan of anybody fighting at our age, but he's a grown man, obviously. He's going to do what he's going to do. But at least I know I talk to talk with life a couple of days ago. and he's taking the serious and he's trained it for it and you know, so we'll see how it plays out.

I think that I think that Mike Tyson is actually one of those unique guys who has crossed over any of these other boxers. From his era, I have no way of making money other than fighting. Mike Tyson has made a lot of money outside of fighting. I mean, Tyson still has that aura. He could be a restaurant. And he walks in and you're like, holy fuck Mike Tyson's here. You know, he still has that type of aura and energy in a room. And he makes lots of money outside of the ring. I just, I think that he ends up getting these offers that he can't refuse.

Well, the guys that get into it for the right reason are the guys who get into it for greatness because you want to be the fucking best, right? And when you're in it for that reason, right you love it and you want to be looked at as the best ever and you have the talent the money happens right then you have other guys who can I believe me I've dealt with fighters who just wanted to be famous and just wanted to make money you know what I mean and it's you know listen it is what it is it's it's it's your it's your life and and you live it the way that you want and and do your thing but the ones that are beloved of the guys who really want to be fucking right and they're the ones that are remembered and I mean when you look at Tyson in his early years when he came up under costy motto I mean he was a student of the game he he loved everything he became completely infatuated with the fight game. Then he became such a massive superstar. It's almost like the whole thing starts to turn on you. You know, all the things that come at you at a young age and that kind of money and it's tough. It's tough to navigate and get through. And you know, you say something like that. People like, oh, poor him. He had fucking $100 million and couldn't at that age and with all this shit that people talk and all the things that you got to put up with and the fame, a lot of people deal with fame, some people handle it really well and some people don't. And the perfect example of that was Forest Griffin and Stefan Bonner. You know, they fought that unbelievable fight on the ultimate fighter. Everything blew up after that. Forest dealt with fame really well and Stefan did not.

Well, what happened that night is that the rest of the show was a disaster. You know, we had the co-man event and the main event. Diego Sanchez ran through Kenny Florian in seconds. Oh my god, that was terrible. And the fights that led up to that weren't anything to talk about either. Then Stephanie Morris got in there and just went toe to toe and this unbelievable slug vest live on free television when cable still mattered. And what I heard was at the time, You know, you had people picking up the phone going, are you watching this show? The numbers just started climbing. Then you got a razor thin decision, who's going to win? You got the crowd stomping their feet. It sounded like a train was going through the place. And everybody's chanting one more round. Me and the fatigue of brothers get together and we talk, we're going to give them both contracts. So we give them both contracts in the place of ropes. It just, it couldn't have been a more perfect fight at the most perfect time. And it just, It all came together. It's almost like this was meant to be. You know what I mean? So we had so many problems with spike TV at the time, right? Because halfway through the season, the president of the company got fired. all the things that we thought we were going to get that year, you know, we have this runaway hit show. And normally at that time when you would see runaway hit shows, there'd be commercials, it'd be on billboards, it'd be on the side of buses in LA in New York. We got none of that, right? We didn't even know if we were going to get a, you know, a second season coming out of that, right? And When that fight was over, I swear to God, I was like, I don't even give a fuck. We're going to end up somewhere now after this fight. And we didn't even make it out of the building that night. The despite guys did the contract with us in the alley on a fucking napkin after the fight.

And all the shit and at that time I didn't know what the rating is not like we were streaming and we could see what we had no idea, but I know he just knew this.

And when you think about what was at stake, there was a car. Remember the Kia? The winner got a Kia.

That's what was the fucking right? And definite forest. Yeah. The will to win. They both wanted to win that fight so bad. It was bigger than the Kia problem. You know, Forest drove that Kia to like 200,000 miles. The biggest mistake Kia ever made was not doing a fucking commercial with Forest Griffin about that car. Forest Griffin loved that car so much he drove it. I think he still has it. It's got like 200,000 miles on that one. I mean, you couldn't have a better fucking commercial than that. And we reached out to him too. I said, Kia should know about this. Yeah. They fucking below it. You got a bunch of you know, those guys are on the the business where all then I'll find anything. Maybe it was about to kill them. It was about winning. They both wanted to win the ultimate fighter so bad. Yeah. It's the Kia. It's it's the win. It's the it's the. The contract to get the whole thing.

They're both bad dudes. They're both real fighters at the end of that. That's why the fight was so great. Yeah.

And you're just like, well, fuck it because you're in those deep rounds. You've had you've been through a war now. It's all about heart and dog who can dig deeper and who's got it and who wants it. Who wants it? I mean, we all know when that when that moment happens in a fight when you see that both of these guys are fucking exhausted and for people they're watching this. People that don't know a lot of everybody thinks they know a lot about fighting 99.9% of the people out there don't know fucking jack shit about fighting or what it takes to do what these people do. But when you get into those later rounds and fatigue sets in and then fatigue makes you start to fucking doubt yourself. And then you start to wonder, can I even make it through the rest of this round? And then you start to think, am I gonna fucking die right now? And these kids dig fucking deep. And they just like you said, all the other shit flies out the window. And now they're just on fucking autopilot to fight and win. Those are definitely the best fight you'll ever see in any combat sport.

When you think about these fights that you see in the UFC, every fucking Saturday when these men and women get to this point where they've been in a dogfight, yet they keep fucking going and you keep trying to win. You can't imagine what's going on inside their heads, you know, self-doubt and all these other things that come into play when exhaustion sets in and they fucking power through it.

So true. It's so true and it happens every fucking weekend. It's so impressive that I say it all the time that the people that are involved in this sport are this much of the population. The people that make it to the top five are incredibly unique, special human beings, man. It's fucking awesome.

Well, two things. I want a million dollar hand. one night, it's happened one time a million dollar hand one night at a man lay bay. And then one summer I beat a beat Caesar's for 12 million throughout the summer throughout the summer. Yeah. And then I'm going to pretty good run right now, too.

The biggest loss was I would hear, here is, I would call this the biggest loss for many different reasons. This is what, you know, you live in your learning life and you know, you figure things out as you go on. So one night I'm over at the, at the real, right? They got big sweets over there so I go over there with some buddies and we got one of the sweets and we have some dinner and we start drinking right so I'm some drinks at dinner and Bob of the starts to ramp up having a good time and I make my way down to the Thai Limit Room we start gambling and I continue to drink having a blast I end up leaving and going home that night and I lost like 80 grand right So I wake up the next morning. I'm like, fuck those motherfuckers got me for 80,000 last night. So I'm at work the next day. And the host over there calls me and he says, hey, Dana, are you coming back? You do still need the room that you guys had where you ate and all the shit needs to. And I said, no, I don't need the room, but Don't get too comfortable with my fucking 80 grand. I'm coming back for it. Dead fucking silence on the other end of the phone. And he's like, Dana, you lost $3 million last night. What the fuck are you talking about? I only have a million and a half dollar credit line. He goes, yeah, you made us call the GM of the hotel and you started calling them a fucking pussy and and I went, yeah, no, that That sounds like something I would do. Yeah. So that's a real number. That was the real number. And then, you know, there's been a lot of cases where people are in Vegas and they're like, you know, I lost all this money. You know, and they were giving me free drinks and I drank too much and I was taking advantage of, no, no, you stupid motherfucker. Man up, you got fucking drunk, right? They didn't. The alcohol is free, but you don't have to fucking drink it. You know what I mean? And you know, this was a huge learning lesson for me. So I never drank again when I was playing cards after that night. But yeah, I mean, that's the one that's the one that came back most as far as having a bad loss. And then, you know, Of course, I said call the GM and I started calling them a pussy at three o'clock in the morning. So, of course you did. That is something I would absolutely do.

Hmm, they go hand in hand. So, the way that I, that I play is, I live in Vegas. So, 2024, is a war for me. I go to war in 24, okay? All these nights that I play are little battles inside the war that I will fight in 24. Now, at the end of the year, we will tally up all these little battles and see where I stand on winds and losses and You know, there's lots to talk about out there about my gambling, you know, places that I've been kicked out of and things like that. I do pretty well. I do pretty well, but it's what I like to do. You know, I don't gamble in a way that I would ever hurt myself or hurt my family or, you know, I'm sure you've heard the norm McDonald stories. Norm McDonald lost like his entire personal wealth for times or something like that. Yeah, that's not gonna happen to me.

So when I win, It's awesome. It's always great to win. Winning is a great feeling in business, in sports, in life, and definitely in gambling. Losing is never fun, but it's part of the game. You know what I mean? If you want to be in the game and it's sports, it's business or whatever, there's going to be wins and there's going to be losses. And you have to take them both in stride and you have to be able to, you know, there's a lot of people When you gamble, right? And you lose. And you go into a deep, dark depression. I've seen this with guys to do it. Get depressed. Gambling isn't for you. You know, if you are the type of person that's on social media and people say horrible things to you and you get depressed and that you shouldn't be on social media. You know what I mean? These are all part of being in the game. When you're in the fucking game, great things happen and really bad things happen and you got to take it all in stride and you got to pick yourself up the next day, strap your fucking shoes back on and get out there and go to fucking war again.

It's the truth though. Listen, every day when you get out of bed, lifestander right there to kick you in the fucking face, man, could be anything could be you get up and you walk down stairs. You got a fucking flat tire and your late for work and you got this life is going to throw all kinds of crazy shit at you, right? And you have to be ready for it and you got to fucking deal with it. Can't curl up a new ball. You can't run away from it. You can't hide. You have to take all this shit head on. You have to get up every day when I get up for out of bed. I strap up and I'm getting ready for fucking war because I know I'm coming in here. I know a bunch of bad shit's gonna happen that I'm gonna fucking deal with. And if that's not bad enough, When I finally get out of here, I'm probably going to go to the casino and I'm going to get into another fucking war. You know what I mean? I thrive in chaos. I actually love chaos. Everybody talks about retiring. Fuck that shit. What am I going to do when I retire? What would I do? What would I? Well, I like to go to war. I like to battle. I like to win. Sometimes I lose but then I have to come back from the loss and I love the build brands. I love to set short-term and long-term goals and then knock them all down. This is just the stuff that excites me and whether it's business or gambling or I like being a fan of things, too. Like I like live music. So when I find a band that I like, I get excited to go watch the band live or Celtics game. I love the fucking Boston Celtics and I love, you know, going to the games and watching them. This is the year. Hopefully we're going to fucking win it this year. These are all things that make me happy and excite me in my life. And it's funny because there's this post that I post maybe three, four nights a week. I also love this city. I can't tell if the city of Las Vegas was built for me or I was built for this fucking city, but I love it. And there's this turn on Somalim Parkway, right? Every night in its dark and from there you can see the entire fucking city and it's all fucking lights and it's badass. And I'm usually driving home after a fucking incredible day, right? This amazing day and this unbelievable fucking life that I have. and I have this just moment of gratitude. Every time I take that turn and I'm like, God damn, I love this fucking city. And just every night when I go home, I'm just so happy and grateful for this life that I have.

I love that too. I love problem solving. I love, I love taking things that seem impossible Fucking... who... What's been shit on more than this fucking company right here? Power slap, right? Yeah. This thing's a fucking beast. It's an absolute beast. In 13 months, that's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of. And I love every fucking minute of it, especially the negativity. I love negativity. I say almost feet on it. I agree.

You're a build. I use that shit for fucking breakfast, man. I love it.

Yeah, it would have to be because you know, no doubt about it. Yeah, you ever see a movie? that change your life, that actually impacted your life in some way and shape before? Probably.

I'm actually very superstitious about that. I believe that what you put out, you get back. Um, and I believe that when you have, you should take care of other people and you should always try to bring people up with you and all that kind of stuff. But the movie that changed the whole trajectory of my life was vision quest.

Vision Quest, man. I fucking love that movie. It's basically, you know, it's telling the story of a kid who really wasn't anybody in high school and nobody kind of knew he was. He wasn't popular or any of that kind of shit. And he decided that that was the year that he was going to make his mark. And he was a good wrestler at 178 pounds, but he was going to move down to 160 something to take on the shoot, the scariest guy in the whatever. But there's all these little things in the movie that really lay out what life is all about. One of the parts is he's in a class and he's talking about the teacher's talking about some poem and he says, what does this poem mean to you? Well, this little girl's walking through the park and all the leaves are falling off the trees and she realizes that she's going to die someday and that a lot of people think they have all this time so they fucking waste it. and they never go out and do what they really set out to do or accomplish or do anything great in their life. That's one meeting. Then he's got the guy that he works with at work. He's cutting weight and his nose is bleeding and all this shit and this guy keeps going, why the fuck are you doing this? Pick that thing up and eat it like a fucking man. This is ridiculous. I don't know why you're doing this to yourself. So then when he meets the girl and he gets to the point where he feels like he wants to quit, right? Where does he go? He goes to that guy's fucking apartment because he knows when he shows up at this guy's apartment. He's going to go, yeah, fuck this shit. No, he went to work. He went to work to talk to him and he wasn't at work. He took the night off. So he shows up at the fucking house at the shitty little fucking apartment that the guy lives in and the guy's putting his suit and tie on and shit. He's like, they said you called and sick. What's going on? He's like, yeah, on Jerusalem this guy tonight. And he's like, Yeah, but why would you you're gonna get docked a nice pay and all the stuff she says, you know what man? Then it all gets laid out. I get the goose bumps even telling you this fucking part of the police speech. Payle. Yeah. When he's saying about, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm fucking cooking in the overnight hotel. Fucking thing and I live in this shitty apartment. a human being can lift himself upside down and backwards and kick a ball into a fucking net and the whole stadium goes crazy and this guy runs around and I'm sitting here in my fucking apartment alone and I start crying yeah I start crying so the guy who's been shit not in the whole fucking time actually really respects him for what he's done and sees what this kid is capable of doing and all this shit does just this fucking movie spoke to me on so many different levels, and I think it's probably the most underrated movie of all time. When you really break down the meaning of what this movie is about, and it fucking really spoke to me.

I would agree. I would agree. I would agree. Yeah. And especially if you can really Here are the messages that it's giving you in this movie. It's excellent. You know it's funny. They just did like the and I saw this after the fact which completely fucking pissed me off. They did like the 25 year or the 30 year thing. It was filmed in Spokane, Washington. They showed the movie at a movie theater there and the cast members came out and spoke about it. I would have fucking flown there for that. Are you shitting me? I'd have been there fucking 30 seconds to go up there and be a part of that. That movie literally changed my life.

Well, you know, it's funny. I wasn't even into wrestling at all. And I didn't have to be for that movie to, yes, you know, basic human story. It's such a great moment.

And it's so true. I mean, when you think about, like I'm 54 years old right now, like that, I mean, it just fucking flew by. You think when you're young that you have all this time, you have no time. There's no time. I mean, one of the quotes on the wall and the gym and theirs, you know, there is no tomorrow from Rocky 3, you know, there is no tomorrow. Fuck that shit. Let's, let's get all the shit done today. Do you think about your death? I'm not, I'm not afraid of death. Not even a little bit. I'm not afraid of it. I don't know if that'll be the case. When I'm facing it, you know, when I'm looking down the barrel of it, laying in a hospital bed somewhere.

100%. I literally, I don't even like to sleep. My life is so fucking awesome. I don't even want to go to bed at night. I don't even want to go to sleep. I want to stay up fucking. I wish I could fucking do 24 hours and never have to sleep. That's how much I love my life.

I don't care what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak, we're all human beings, fightings in our DNA, we get it and we like it and it's true. Fighting is in our DNA. It's a part of who we are and, you know, no matter where you are, fight breaks out, it creates this fucking energy, this buzz, the sense of fear. I mean, a lot of different emotions happen in people when fights break out. But one thing that is always the case, everybody's watching man, everybody's fucking it. All of their eyes are on the fight. I mean, we're just a Mexico. Fucking fight broke out. Like in the good seats, like right here, with these super expensive and security never fucking came. Yeah. They just let these guys fight until they gasped out. Yeah. And then everybody put the chairs back together and sat back down and fucking. I literally got up from my table, walked over and was watching this fight. At the fights.

Absolutely. And that was my thought process going into buying the UFC. And I believe that this would work everywhere. Thank God we were right.

Pleasure, buddy. Thank you for the kind words.