Dana White on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour

In 2001, Dana White became president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The company was 44 million dollars in the hole. Fast forward to 2006. The UFC set a pay-per-view sales record - raking in more than 220 million dollars in revenue. So, how'd he do it? When Dana came on the scene, Mixed Martial Arts - or MMA - was a fringe sport. It was banned in 36 states. The pay-per-view providers wanted out and the fights were considered too bloody, brutal and violent. Even politicians were morally outraged. So, Dana reacted. He cleaned up the rules, brought in weight classes and put in a judging system. He marketed the fighters' personalities and emphasized their athletic ability. He also made the fights more crowd friendly. Then he created a reality show called 'The Ultimate Fighter.' The show became huge and before you could tap out, the UFC became the fastest growing sport in America.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Dana
• White
• The
• hour
• with
• George
• Stroumboulopoulos
• MMA
• UFC
• Mixed
• Martial
• Arts
• Ultimate
• Fighting

[pryzed1]

Dana White very smart man.

[crzwhiteboy1121]

Can you name one of the boxing heavyweight champs? Didn't think so.

[longplainfirstnation]

@crzwhiteboy1121 Ali Frazier Forman Tyson

[antonny11]

@mindfuqq Thats what makes them so much smarter. They have actually gotten people to feed in to Dana White's clearly for show personality.

[deanobrown]

@mindfuqq Uh....u obviously don't fucking know shit cuz Dana is the biggest reason for the UFC being around today.

[princeofiron]

@crzwhiteboy1121 Mohammad Ali baby

[LucFox35]

@crzwhiteboy1121 vladamir klitchscko

[mindfuqq]

I love how they make it look like dana white did all this. Dana white is a face man thats it. He didn't come up with all this he just took the credit like any face man does. Behind dana white there are 25 other investors pulling the strings and moving his mouth.

[donnyv78]

@crzwhiteboy1121 Why are you answering your own question? lol.

Of you course you won't be able to name one of the boxing heavyweight champions if you don't watch boxing, just as those who don't watch MMA wouldn't be able to name Dream, Strikeforce, or UFC champions.

[emmerin]

@sirjohnrambo except this george would beat the shit outta that george lol

[infearandfaiith]

Dana White is the man. Much respect to him.