Dana White, UFC

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Get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today. My bosses, you know how bosses are. Stop putting Dana on because he curses too much and then we can get sued and all that. The fingers on the dump button by a lot of people in the U.S. How could you get sued? I guess you can sue for anything these days. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Fine, fine, fine.

Sued, fine. That's what we talk to host, tomato, tomato. You said something to me last time you were on. You're like, please come out to an event.

Because I've told you about the years. I'm a casual fan of the UFC and I've enjoyed it more and more. And you go, if you go to an event, you'll walk out and you'll say this is the greatest thing ever.

I was at UFC at Madison Square Garden a few months back. What an effing, I can say that, what an effing show that was. Right, I mean, it's great to watch on television. It's fun to watch, but when you see it live, it's just, it's a whole other level, man. It's like, when I look at other sports, like, I love watching the NFL on TV. I don't love the live experience as much as I do on TV.

And there's other sports that are, you know, back and forth. The UFC is great on television, but it's even better live. And you can't even describe the crowds. I've never seen, I love hockey, so I go to a bunch of playoff hockey games and it's awesome. Someone scores a goal, all the beer is going up in the air at Madison Square Garden for a Ranger game. But that crowd, from the preliminaries to the last fight, it's something that I've never seen.

Right, I know. It's the reason, one of the reasons that the sport has grown as big and as fast as it has is because of the live event. So, in the early stages of the UFC, we made sure that we took it to everyone. We took it everywhere. We didn't just go to the T-Mobile centers, the Madison Square Gardens, all the big arenas. We went to small town arenas in Oklahoma and all these other places so that everybody could experience the live event. And the craziest part about that, I remember talking to you after the fight, Chandler and Poirier was the third to last fight.

I could have went home happy right after that because that was a slugfest if you've ever seen one. Right, and I'm telling you, this weekend is going to be the same. And we haven't been to Australia in a long time. We're in Perth, Australia this weekend. And one of their own, who is the pound for pound best fighter in the world, fighting the number two pound for pound fighter in the world.

And they're both world champions. The energy inside that building, you're going to feel it on TV this weekend. Do you ever wake up and you're just not excited to go to work when you're running the UFC?

No, no. There's never a day that I'm not excited to go to work. Not just like one day you don't get tired. You're like, I've been doing this for so many years. There's always something that just keeps you going?

Yeah, it really does. I just love it. And you know, I just started this new power slap, right? Now I'm even as excited about that as I am the UFC. So this is what I love to do. I love building brands and I love growing a sport.

I love it. How did the power slap league come about? So in 2017 I started to see this stuff popping up online from Poland and Russia. And I was fascinated by it immediately. So I took a deeper dive into it. I started looking at some of the numbers this thing was pulling on social media and I was blown away. So I started, you know, studying the sport. I met with one of the guys from Russia who was doing it. And who was, you know, a promoter of it out there.

And I said, I think I'm going to give this a shot. Then COVID hit. And you know, so it didn't happen until just recently. But yeah, I love it, man.

Can you sell me on it? Because I'm not going to lie to you, Dana White. There's sometimes when I watch it and I see everything on TikTok and Twitter and Instagram, I'm like, oh, it's like tough for me to watch when you see someone violently slap someone like that.

It's so true, which is hilarious, right? When you think about it, that people would be so horrified by a slap when we're so numb to boxing and MMA. I mean, if you just watch the last global to share a fight down in Brazil. I mean, he took he took 10 shins to the skull and elbows and you know what I mean? But you're right, because in boxing and UFC, I go to a fight and you see people get mauled all the time. And there's sometimes you have to turn away. But it's different with the slap. But what you just said to me, Dana, I think this is so brutal.

I go, can you sell me on this? That's what people are saying to me in 2001 about the UFC. You're right.

Identical what they were saying to me. I know I'm only 28, but when I was first told you got to watch UFC, you got to watch the UFC. I go, it's not one of the four major sports. I'll never get into it. I'll tell you what I'm right. I'll tell you what I'm wrong. I watch your your your sport more and more by the day.

It's awesome to watch. So think about this. So one of the things that I am very big on is health and safety of the athletes.

Right. So 2001, we bought the company. Today's 2023.

I spent a lot of money on health and safety. There's never been a death or serious injury from 2001 to 2023. 2001 to 2023 in boxing, there's been 34 deaths. OK, to compare it now in slap, think about a boxing match.

Let me let me start there first. Those guys take 400 to 600 punches a fight. And that doesn't include the sparring they did to lead up to the fight. You know what I mean?

In slap, these guys take three or less slaps, go through the same exact medical testing and everything that UFC fighters do. It's just it's new. It's new.

And, you know, and a lot of things people don't like right away that are new. 100 percent. A fact. That's an absolute fact.

People hate change. Trust me. When I got this job, who's this guy? He sucks.

Get him out of here. And then after a year, people love you. 100 percent. You're absolutely right again. And let me tell you how that you just mentioned TikTok. You see this stuff on TikTok. We started a TikTok for power slap two and a half weeks ago. Last time I checked, which was two days ago, we had one point seven million followers. Wow. 688 million views in two and a half weeks. I think we have almost 400000 followers right now on Instagram. 147 million views in two and a half weeks. So this thing, what's interesting is the younger generation loves this and is eating it up.

The older generation is like, not that you're the older generation, but my dad, for example, 100 percent. Oh, my God. This is brutal. Exactly. And it was the same way with the UFC. You had all the boxing guys going, this is terrible, you know, and all the ball and stick, you know, fans.

This is terrible. This is this and that. We'll talk again in two years and watch for power.

Your Super Bowl, your Odyssey get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today. Slap is in two years. Dana White here with us. So last time I talked to you and you've talked about this a lot, you want to have UFC Africa.

I'm just wondering. And I know that you're always into new ideas. I have an idea.

I would be shocked if you haven't thought about it yet, but it also wouldn't surprise me if you haven't gone down this road. We're at the Super Bowl. You have an event this weekend. I'm here each and every year on Radio Row. Why don't we get in at a Super Bowl host city the night before the big game, UFC? Well, we did it in Houston before the Super Bowl. We had one and obviously next year is Vegas.

So it's a no brainer to go Saturday night in Vegas. You had one in Houston that Saturday night before? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. I missed out.

Didn't get the invite, I guess. It was a fight night. Oh, OK. Yeah. And then the other thing that I just recently saw, McGregor's going up against Chandler eventually?

Yeah. So those guys are going to coach the next season of the Ultimate Fighter. And what's awesome is it's the first Ultimate Fighter that's actually going to be on ESPN, the network. So, you know, the show is going to be great and then it'll make that fight even bigger, which I think that fight's going to be massive as it is. And that will be McGregor's first fight back? Yes.

How do you think he's going to do? Is there something? Now, he's been someone that has been awesome for the UFC for years and years and years, but just with what he's been through, I have no clue what to expect.

Yeah. Well, I'm a big believer in when you take time off from fighting, you know, it's never great for you. And, you know, I can tell you this. The Conor McGregor-Michael Chandler fight is going to be absolutely, positively violent. That I can tell you. Now, I'm not an expert by any stretch, you know, when talking about the UFC, but I don't see how Chandler doesn't win.

That's what makes it interesting that you're going to have both sides of that argument. You'll have people that believe there's no way Conor loses that fight and there's going to have people that believe there's no way Chandler loses that fight. What's the next step for the PowerSlap League? So, you know, we go tomorrow night. Again, we're Wednesday nights on TBS. Ten on the East Coast, ten on the West Coast.

We have four more episodes with them and then we figure out where we're going and what we're doing. Were you surprised Tom Brady retired? Yeah, I was. I thought he was going to go one more year. And I thought your dream was going to come to fruition. He was going to wind up with the Raiders.

It didn't happen though. Well, that wasn't really my dream. My real dream would be, he goes back to the Patriots, you know what I mean? Now we're talking. But, you know, if he ended up, I own a box at Raider Stadium, so it wouldn't suck if he ended up in Vegas.

Some good business opportunities. Exactly. Well, you know, I love Brady. Guy's given me nothing but absolute joy over the last twenty something years. So, it would be cool to see him end in Vegas and watch him play his last year there. Dana White, anything else you want to say about the fight coming up this weekend in PowerSlap? No, that's it man. Listen, this fight this weekend in the UFC is the number one pound for pound fighter in the world versus the number two pound for pound fighter in the world.

They're both world champions in their prime. It doesn't get any better than this. Dana White, good to see you. Thanks so much. Thank you. The biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl, is on Odyssey. And Westwood One brings it to you, streaming live for free, Sunday, February 12th on the Odyssey app. The Eagles have been the NFC's best team. Touchdown, Travis Kelce. It's the Eagles versus the Chiefs. The Kansas City Chiefs.

The Philadelphia Eagles are going to the Super Bowl again. Catch all the action from Westwood One. Your Super Bowl, your Odyssey. Get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today. Subscribe now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.