UFC CEO Dana White and Donald J. Trump share a long and storied friendship, one that goes all the way back to 2001 when the UFC held an event at Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
“He got it, he liked it, and he said, ‘Come to Taj Mahal,’” recalled White in a recent interview with Forbes, “We did two events, he showed up to the first one and stayed to the last [fight].”
Since then, the two ‘broligarchs’ have been inseparable; with White posing as a prominent figure on each of Trump’s three political campaigns and offering his services; whether that’s speaking at events, connecting Trump with his own people, or much sought-after power on social media.
According to White, Trump rarely misses a UFC event – to the point that even a few days after winning re-election, took the time to send his old buddy a message before UFC 310.
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Dana White shows off private message from President Trump at UFC 310
Dana White certainly isn’t shy about showing off his contacts; champion of which is his friendship with sitting US President Donald J. Trump.
Forbes journalist Matt Craig got the chance to interview White from ringside at UFC 310: Pantoja vs Asakura this past December, with the UFC CEO explaining everything from how the fight order is figured out, to how he communicates with the broadcast team when there’s an issue.
Only the most important things can distract White during a UFC PPV, and when he stopped mid-sentence to stare at his buzzing phone, you knew he’d received something big – it was the President.
“I’m on a brand new Gulf Stream 650 flying at 9.2 over the Atlantic from France, where I got the UFC treatment at the reopening of the beautiful Notre Dame cathedral,” White read aloud.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is this plane doesn’t have a television. So, I won’t be able to watch your great fights tonight and I am not happy about it.
“I’ve become very spoiled, and I assume that all planes come with high-grade televisions, but actually when you think about it there are many bigger problems in the world right now that need to be fixed – I’ll catch the next fight.”
White beamed with pride as he revealed the last sentence: “Tell Joe Rogan I said hi. Donald J. Trump.”
Ironically, there was once a time when Trump and White were competing as rival MMA promoters; with Trump being the primary shareholder for ‘Affliction MMA’, which launched in 2008.
That promotion failed in spectacular fashion, although White believes that was simply more evidence of Trump’s investment in the sport as a whole.
“I’ll never say anything bad about Donald Trump. Donald Trump was good to us but it’s a testament to how much he likes fighting and what he saw in the UFC back in those days.”
Dana White on how he books UFC events and the order of fights
UFC events are, generally-speaking, fairly consistent – although there remains an obvious issue with the order of certain fights.
Sometimes household names are buried on the prelims whilst clear ‘snoozefest’ bouts between relatively unknown fighters pop up on the PPV portion of the card.
As White and Craig talked from just outside the octagon, the UFC CEO would reveal what he thinks about when putting events together and specifically, the order in which UFC fights are put on.
“There’s a pacing, you know – if you look at this, we start out on the prelims right, and these are people that are making their way up… This is on ESPN2, so you want to open ESPN2 with a great fight and you want the [prelim] main event to be a good fight.
“Now, you’re coming into the Pay-Per-View, and we want the Pay-Per-View to open with a bang, and then the main event [of the night] hopefully delivers too.”
“You want everything to deliver,” said White, before quickly noting “But you want to set yourself up for success.”
The next UFC event is scheduled for Saturday, February 15 and will be a Fight Night card at The Apex, headlined by middleweight contenders Jared Cannonier vs Gregory Rodrigues.