This New Behind-The-Scenes Look At How Dana White Runs The UFC Is Fascinating
The UFC just premiered a new three-part series on Roku called 'Fight Inc: Inside the UFC' which follows Dana White, his matchmakers, and a lot of the behind-the-scenes crew to show what goes into running the company day-to-day for the first time ever. They include everything from matchmaker meetings, to fighter negotiations, to injuries and pull-outs making the team scramble to fix things, to Dana White working on vacation, and the footage is legitimately crack to MMA fans right now. We can't get enough of this kinda stuff and are already clamoring for more. It's a ton of aspects of the business we've never seen before, and a whole new look at the big wigs in the company (while still looping in fighter stories like Jon Jones/Sean O'Malley) and I just have to share some of the clips that have come out of it.
For starters, here's Jon Jones doing a fighter meeting with the UFC broadcast team, which includes his most hated rival: Daniel Cormier....
Jon's fake nice guy voice/schtick is like nails on a chalkboard to Cormier. Even when Jones tries to compliment DC, the best he can come up with in return is basically "Stay off drugs, because a lot of kids look up to you." and I love it. That rivalry will never die.
Speaking of Jones, here's Hunter Campbell breaking the news of his own pec tear to him....
….all while the 'Best Uncle Ever' framed photo of me and Dana/the Darren Rovell pillow sit there behind them. Pretty wild.
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One of my favorite moments is Khabib shitting all over the idea of Kamaru Usman vs Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson (while his manager Ali is trying to book it)….
Dana was trying to pitch a fight against Shavkat Rakhmonov for Usman at the time, which Khabib loved the idea of, but Ali wasn't having it. Khabib telling his manager "Brother, if you nervous - don't speak." killed me tho. Real talk: if Conor didn't go to war with him I'd probably love him.
There's a lot of funny moments like that, tho - like Hunter Campbell scolding Merab for stealing Sean O'Malley's jacket after the Aljo/Cejudo fight….
….or the UFC PR team holding a meeting where they run down everything said in Sean Strickland's latest presser….
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There's revelations, like the fact that they tried to book Islam Makhachev vs Charles Oliveira 2 on 17 days notice….
….and there's also some hilarious Trump footage for any big fans of 45 out there….
Dana White yelling "That's Robbie Lawler's last fight, he just retired!" across the room at Donald Trump, the camera panning to him like an episode of The Office, and Trump just going "….man!" had me in stitches. It's not even conventionally funny, but I don't know what it is - truly everything about the guy makes me laugh. I'd love to be able to talk fights with him one day.
Anyway, there's plenty more where these came from in the full show on the Roku Channel (which is free, you just sign up on their website). This isn't even an ad (despite it probably sounding like one), but I'd highly recommend any UFC fans who are interested check it out this week. Shit's awesome and probably the closest we've come to a Hard Knocks style series for MMA - but more front-office based than player-focused.