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Kyle
All right, guys, welcome back to another podcast. White House fight is around the corner. I'm going to the White House fight and I'm going to be firing on prize picks. Nuclear. Nuclear. I'm going to be putting together a massive lineup for prize picks for this and then I'm also going to probably, you know, fire on every single flight. Follow me on the Prizepix app, Kyle, and you guys can see what I'm actually picking when I do it. Let's fire big for the White House fight. I'm so fired up for this. That's what I love about Prizepix now is, you know, I've always loved doing the lineups. Now you can choose teams. It's literally everything all in one app as of May. You can even put the team picks into your lineup, which is crazy. So you can add a team pick for mlb, NBA, or WNBA to one of your lineups. Prize picks available in so many different states, including California, Texas, Florida, Florida. If you guys have never tried out the prize picks app, we got you guys on Code Nelk. Download the app and use that for your first time and then just put in $5 and you get $50 for free. So take advantage of Code Nelk. We got NHL playoffs, NBA Finals, World Cups around the corner. White House fight in two weeks. We're going nuclear, boys. I'm trying to win big. Download the prize picks app, use Code Nelk. Let's get into the podcast. Price picks, offers, DFS and free to play 50 provided as prize picks. DFS lineups must spend $5 of real money on PR before receiving bonus lineups. Prize Picks Predict is a registered FCFM offering team picks and culture picks as event contracts. Both involve significant risk.
Chetty
Not for all.
Kyle
Must be 18 plus. And for event contracts via us resident restrictions apply. Void where prohibited use responsibly. For help, call 1-800-426-2537 or visit ncpgambling.org what's up, boys?
Dana
Yeah, George. What up?
Chetty
What up?
Freezer
Yeah, let's go boys.
Kyle
Boys are oiled up or what?
Freezer
Steiny wearing a TPT bucky today to get some coin back.
Kyle
100.
Freezer
I'm dual stacking upper deckies for this one.
Kyle
Senator freezer tarps.
Chetty
That's jokes.
Kyle
One of you guys gonna ask about Strickland?
Freezer
I got two questions. For him. I'm asking him how the he's gonna top this one. And I'm gonna be like, buddy, maybe the Egyptian pyramids next. And then I'm gonna ask him what he thinks about me throwing 30k on sugar Sean Knockout. And then I'm gonna shut my mouth because I don't want to anything up. I don't know.
Chetty
Yo, Chetty, you know what's the best treadmill I just learned watching Modern Warfare Campaign clips.
Kyle
I've been bullied that,
Freezer
dude.
Chetty
It gets me fired up just literally watching the story mode. I've never played the game in my life. You know what it is? The video games are so good now. It looks like. Like I'm watching a war movie. It's sick.
Freezer
It is like that, dude, do you
Kyle
rip story mode on CoD?
Freezer
Every time I give it a go.
Kyle
And then I think. I think I did an MW2, but I think that's it.
Freezer
Yeah, the OG one for sure. I remember Halo campaigns were fucking go.
Kyle
Hey, COD Story mode is kind of like whatever, right?
Freezer
Yeah, it's like you're just. Yeah, you're. It's just killing bots, dude.
Kyle
It's like so hard to die. And too like, you're like.
Chetty
It's pretty easy, right? Yeah, like, you're never speak for yourself.
Kyle
It's not like getting shot in multiplayer. Like, you can eat so many shots in story mode.
Freezer
You can eat like, you can eat up by.
Kyle
You can eat like a zillion bullets.
Chetty
Dude, I'm playing Vanguard right now, and I can't. I'm like getting mad, throwing my controller. I can't beat the campaign. It's like. And I'm on Vanguard.
Freezer
The. Wait, what is that game?
Chetty
I think it's Call of Duty Vanguard or something.
Freezer
Oh, COD Vanguard. Okay.
Chetty
It's like some World War II thing or like you're in Vietnam, dude. But it's.
Freezer
That. That game is sick.
Chetty
Yeah, it's a good game.
Freezer
I'm way too good at Call of Duty multiplayer. That's my.
Chetty
I don't think I've ever played multiplayer sliding around.
Freezer
And
Chetty
dude, if I. If I streamed me playing Campaign, I'm so bad. It's like I'm like throwing grenades and it's like killing me and like, I don't. I don't know what I'm doing.
Freezer
Cooking them too long.
Chetty
Yo, Kyle, did I ever tell you this story? Remember this? When I bought this in China?
Freezer
Okay, at.
Kyle
Where did you buy that? At the Great Wall.
Chetty
Yeah, the Mao statue.
Dana White
Yeah.
Chetty
So I'm. I'm Kind of was seeing this girl who's Chinese, and she comes over to my house. She's like, why do you have a Mao statue? Oh, my God, I don't even know who it is. And I'm like, oh, I heard he's like a bad guy. My bad. Like, she's like, no, he's the best. Like, she, like, thought it was sick
Dana White
that I like Rep. Mao.
Kyle
Really?
Chetty
Because isn't he, like, a badass? He's like a bad guy, right?
Kyle
I mean, who knows? It's probably, like how people love Trump or hate Trump too. I don't know.
Chetty
That's what I'm saying. I think it was pretty heavy.
Dana
Caused the giant famine. I know, I know that. I know. The Trump haters.
Chetty
The Trump haters would such a Santa Cruz line.
Dana
The Trump haters would think that he killed a lot of people, but actually, greatest country on earth, but it's a whole other story.
Kyle
He caused the giant famine.
Dana White
Yeah.
Chetty
That's a brutal thing to be recognized for just starred people.
Dana
Communism doesn't work, despite what a lot of the people in the United States are campaigning for.
Chetty
I don't even know what that word
Dana
means, to be honest.
Kyle
China's lit. That's all I know.
Dana
Spurs and 700.
Kyle
I had 50k on the spurs last night.
Dana
The only bet I took on this was that the series was gonna go seven games. So if it goes seven games, I'm cashing a little money.
Kyle
Like, I knew they weren't gonna go up three nothing.
Dana White
Yeah,
Freezer
I listened to all the idiots deleted my bet, and God damn, dude.
Kyle
I think hurricanes tonight.
Freezer
When four G's hot. He might be hot.
Kyle
I don't strike too often. Like last night, I was just like, Yo, Spurs, 150K. What's up, Dana?
Dana White
What's up, boys? How are you?
Kyle
How we doing?
Dana White
Good. I'm good, man. How you doing?
Freezer
Good.
Kyle
You in D.C. already?
Dana White
Oh, yeah, I. I've been gone for like, 15 days. I'm England, D.C. i go to New York tomorrow and then back here to D.C. and then, yeah, I'm all over the place.
Kyle
That's crazy. I mean, I've been watching the UFC for so long too, and I feel like a lot of people haven't seen all the stuff you guys have gone through to build the UFC to what it is. You know, I think a lot of people started watching post Covid, but they didn't see the. The state by state battles where the sport wasn't even legalized in some states.
Dana White
Oh, it was illegal.
Kyle
Yeah.
Dana White
Not legalized, illegal.
Chetty
That's, sorry, illegal.
Dana White
In different states, when something is illegal and you have to turn it around and make it legal. Yeah, it's. No, it's been. Listen, this is probably one of the craziest stories in all of sports, but, yeah, we're. We've been through some.
Kyle
Is this like a moment for you where you kind of sit back and.
Dana White
No, not.
Kyle
Not even.
Dana White
Right, so. So what. What we're doing now is, I mean, the setup over. I just went and walked it again last night, went through all the. All the elements and had a whole production meeting last night. I mean, we're basically on. On the lawn of the White House building an arena, which is almost impossible to do, and then beyond that, on the ellipse. What we built on the ellipse is even crazier. You know, my head of production, Craig Borsari, and my team are just so badass, man. The. The stuff that we pull off. I thought the sphere was going to be, you know, the craziest thing we'd ever done, but this. This tops it by, you know, a million times what the sphere was.
Kyle
Is this going to rank as the biggest sporting event of all time?
Dana White
I certainly hope so. It's definitely the most historic for sure. And again, something that will never be done. I said when we went into the sphere, I said, after we do this, a lot of people are going to roll in after us and try to do it. Nobody tried to do it. Nobody has tried to pull off the sphere since we did it. And, yeah, nobody's definitely going to do this again.
Freezer
Yeah. So how do you. How are you going to top the White House then? Maybe, like, outside at the Egyptian?
Dana White
You know, I'm trying to top anything. It's just these things just sort of happen. Like, Brady hit me up, and Brady said, hey, you want to go to YouTube with me this weekend? So we went to the Sphere, went to YouTube while I was watching the show. I was like, this is badass. I wanna. I want to do this. So we did it. And then, you know, we were at a fight one night and the President leans over and goes, we should do a fight at the White House. And I was like, yes, yes, we should. Let's do it. So what I like, I like, like, brand new arenas. When new arenas pop up and they have a lot of, you know, a lot of new technology and, and people can get a great experience. You know, for one of our fights, this is, you know, this just. Just happened to happen. It's the 250th birthday of America. So it just. It just happened. I'm not. I'm never trying to do fights in funky places. Not. Not really my. I don't even like fucking stadiums, you know, because I feel like they're. They're too big. And you don't get the same experience that you get in a great arena.
Chetty
What do you think? Spin, like. I mean, obviously you're just in problem solving mode.
Dana White
Like, what.
Chetty
What's been the, like, number one you've had to figure out, do you think, to make this happen?
Dana White
To be honest with you, this has been pretty smooth so far, and it's been pretty smooth now. We're just looking down the barrel of weather, you know, is the weather going to be okay? You know, there's all kinds of stories being written about the weather. Everybody's trying to predict the weather this Sunday, but it's looking good. You know, we're using the military. The military weather service is the best on the planet. And we're looking good. We're looking good so far. Again, I can knock on wood here. Yeah.
Dana
Are there any. Is there any legs to this? Susan Douglas, the civil activist, she's trying to file an injunction to stop the event. Is that just kind of background noise, or is that something that you guys actively have to look into?
Dana White
We. We. I actually was surprised it took the loonies that long. I knew loonies were going to pop up somewhere at some point in time. They were a little late to the game, but I was expecting them.
Dana
Yeah, there's a lot of crazy controversy with a lot of people about this event.
Dana White
The first time we ever did a fight in London, we did it at the Royal Albert hall, and they tried to shut us down then, too, back in 2002. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Dana
No, I was just saying, you know, like, you have. I'm in Zahabi, who's a Muslim fighter, you know, and you have, like, a kind of a multicultural experience when you're watching the ufc, you're watching kids from the photo have come up, and now they're living out their dreams. Yet people really want to hate on this event. As far as some of the rumors that are going around that are riling people up, if we could just, like, clarify some of them, the number one thing going on on Twitter right now is they're saying Sean Strickland is banned from the event. What are the details with that? What's going on there?
Dana White
Dumbest that. You know, every day I wake up and I see dumb on. On and you're absolutely right. Oh, he's not fucking banned. Listen, Sean Strickland, he's just not invited. Not banned. We just didn't invite him. We have 800 fucking fighters under contract that aren't going to the event. Not because they're banned, because there's no room. And not to mention the fact if you look at all the shit Sean Strickland said leading up to the White House event, he's basically saying he didn't want to be there, he wouldn't want to be there, he wouldn't want to fight there. And he's just sort of. I mean, this is what Sean Strickland does. Not to mention the fact that if this fight was in fucking Tucson, Arizona, in an arena, Sean Strickland is the type of guy you keep away from other human beings. It's not like, you know, Sean's the guy that you want fucking roaming around. We invite him to power slap fights. He gets in fucking fights with people while he's there. He walks up to people fucking Machine Gun Kelly and just starts calling them names and.
Kyle
Yeah.
Dana White
Know what I mean? Yeah. Sean Strickland is the victim. That's. That's hilarious. No, Sean Strickland has not been banned by us or the White House.
Chetty
That is. That is a funny way to put it.
Dana White
He's not a guy you bring around other people, let alone the fucking White House. And. And he made it very clear leading up to the. To the event that it was something that he did not want to be a part of. Now all of a sudden, he's been this victim who's been banned. Nobody's banned.
Chetty
Yeah.
Dana
I think the controversy is like, he's our. He is the only American champ right now, and so people, like, want to see him there. Then the other controversy was another rumor that people were saying it tied in with it. People are like, oh, Netanyahu is going to be ringsu. So can you dispel that. That rumor that's going.
Dana White
I highly doubt that Netanyahu is going to be at the event. You know, but this is all the goofy that. That. That comes out and leads up to. To anything. I mean, it's just. It's it's all. But I love it. I love all this kind of stuff. This is.
Kyle
That's what comes with an event of this.
Dana White
That's exactly right.
Kyle
You're gonna have haters when you're doing something this earth shattering.
Chetty
Also, if you're. If you're not invited to something, just be. Just saying that you're banned. Is. Is a cooler way to do it, you know, I mean, like, technically, Steiny, you're banned from this event. You know, I mean, like for all anyone who's not going is. Is banned.
Dana White
Yeah. Yeah, definitely not banned. Nobody has been banned. We have 800 fighters under contract. We have a bunch of guys that are coming out and girls that are going to, you know, be a part of the Ellipse, the fan experience over there. Sean Strickland is not the guy that you fucking bring to that, to that event and do it. You know, we have 44 events a year. Sean Strickland At 44 of our events every year. No, none of the fighters are the 800 fighters that we have under contract. There's a group of guys and girls that do go and 700 and something that don't. Yeah, goofy, goofy. That leads up to an event.
Dana
A lot of people on the left have framed this as this is being paid for by taxpayers. That. And this is something that's pretty clear if you just Google it. But they're still having this narrative that somehow Trump is paying for this. So that's another thing that you might.
Dana White
Not only are the taxpayers not paying for this thing, we're paying for fucking everything. We're is a big number on this one. And, and here's the other thing. So. Hey, Elliot, in my room, there's a, like a, a Washington D.C. magazine. I think it's on the floor by my bed. Go grab that. So it's the 250th birthday of America. You know how many events are going on in Washington D.C. and, and, and to celebrate 250. And there's this Washington D.C. magazine I was looking at a couple nights ago that's in the hotel room here. And it's literally filled with all the events that are happening, you know, from concerts to fucking all this other shit. So because Trump likes the ufc, and the UFC is one of the events here, you know, it's the event that the people that don't like Trump want to attack. It's Trump's Battle Flag Day. Trump's birthday was. We were supposed to do it the 4th of July, but he ended up. He's got to be in like three states on the 4th of July. Plus it's my favorite holiday, so I'm glad we don't. Look at. This is a Washington magazine here. The Full cover is America's 250 big events. New exhibits, grand openings, local gems. This, that all the ways to celebrate 250 in Washington D.C. and this thing is literally full of concerts and everything that's going on in Washington, D.C. for America's 250th birthday. Nobody's bitching about that, right?
Chetty
Yeah.
Dana
I mean, Teddy Roosevelt did some boxing fights right at the ufc, right at the White House, and nobody really
Dana White
in. In the, in the, in the show. Yeah. Teddy Roosevelt used to spar. He'd bring in fighters and he used to spar with him at the White House. He used to spar, wrestle, and grapple back in his day.
Chetty
Whoa. I didn't know that. That's it.
Dana
He was a badass.
Kyle
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Chetty
You do a pretty big party for July 4th, right? I think I heard that you, like, throw for your employees, your friends.
Dana White
I got a place up in Maine and I go up there and like, literally I put on like a 30 minute fireworks show, and people from all the towns around me all come over and park their cars around my property and watch the show and yeah, I'll be in.
Freezer
I'll be in Bar Harbor, Maine, by that area.
Dana White
By the way, you're 40 minutes from me. 40 minutes away. Yeah, Yeah.
Freezer
I live up in North Conway, New Hampshire, so.
Dana White
Not very cool.
Kyle
You probably Go ham on fireworks.
Chetty
What do you spend on fireworks?
Dana White
30 minutes long. Most fireworks show are like a 10 minute fireworks show is a long fireworks show. Mine's 30 minutes. My, my show is better than the town that does them.
Chetty
Oh, yeah. I grew up in a small town. It was about 45 seconds are like.
Dana White
And that's normal.
Chetty
It was a couple black cats. It was like, yeah, you know, it wasn't too great.
Dana
So, Dana, how long do you see yourself doing this kind of grind? I know you've been able to. It's not the same grind as it was when you were like battling, you know, John McCain and, and this type of thing. UFC is way more mainstream now, so it's a bit more fluid. But do you see yourself doing this in, into your 80s or like, what
Dana White
do you want to continue? As we continue to grow, we continue to, you know, we're not a fight promotion anymore. I mean, we're so much bigger than that. And, and what we're. We. I just did a, a boxing match in England, my first fight on Sky Sports over there. And it was unbelievable. I mean, the English fans are different, man, they're just so different. And, and any sporting event, you can go to a ping match in England and the fans will make it the most exciting thing you've ever seen. And, you know, they're singing and chanting and, you know, when people talk to me about, oh, you know, your competitors, your competitors. My competitors are the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NHL. Those are my competitors. All these other guys, you know, we are not the fucking same, okay? We are not in the same fucking league. Not even close. So when I want you guys to wrap your fucking head around this, now, the most powerful in the world, you're talking about soccer. Soccer is massive in the United States. The, the NFL is the monster and this country. And when you talk about competing in competition, when they were sitting around their headquarters and it came out, they said, what? The fucking UFC just got an $8 billion fucking television deal. There was $8 billion sitting over at Paramount. How did we not get that money? We'll put games on on fucking Tuesday. You know, we want that money. And those are the guys that then, you know, the NHL, Major League Baseball, all these other guys that saw that deal get done, they all want that. So over the next, you know, six years, me and my team have to fucking deliver on a lot of different fronts for Paramount so that we're looking down the barrel of our deal ending. These are the guys that I'm going to be competing with all these other fucking, you know, I'll go, I'll do a press conference and I got my press going. Fucking Oscar De La Hoya said. What? Oscar De La Hoya, you know, Eddie Hearn said. And all these other guys, Jake Paul said, guys, we, we are not, we are not the same. Those guys are not my. They're all competing with each other. They're all going to beat each other up and blow all their money and do whatever they're going to do. Those guys are not my competition. So the question you asked me is how much longer am I to do. I have so much that, that's going on right now that I want to do, you know, and however long it. It takes. But the new thing that I'm really focused on is boxing and, and building that up over the next couple of years and got a lot of big announcements over the next month. So I'm still having fun. I love this shit. I've been on the road for 15 days and I'm not going home till Monday and then I go out on the road again right after that. This is going to be. It's crazy because if you look at what we've accomplished, like Kyle said when we started the podcast, you know, it's probably the busiest year of my career this year with all the. That we got going on. So I still love it. I still, you know, I still got the energy to do it. And so who knows, I might be 80 still doing this. Who knows?
Chetty
Is it hard to imagine not doing it? Like, once you find a love for doing this, like, you wake up one day and you're like, how am I
Dana White
not gonna do this? I'm still in that mode where I love the stress, love solving problems. I love building. I like to build and, you know, if you look at what we've already accomplished.
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Dana White
Within the next couple of years. Any way that you could possibly kick somebody's ass, we're going to be involved in and be the biggest and the best. So I still have a lot of goals as far as, you know, what we're doing with TKO as a group. And I love the team that we've built. I mean, my UFC team is second to none. I mean, you know, I talk about my employees all the time. They're a bunch of animals, killers. And, and, and then now the team that I've built with Nick Khan on the boxing side is exactly the same. And I'm having a blast with these guys right now. I like killers, man, and I got a bunch of fucking killers working for me.
Kyle
That's what I was going to ask about the Zufa boxing, because I've seen you talk about it in the press conferences and you're like, judge us by what we do. At the end of the year, are you guys looking to completely take over boxing?
Dana White
We're five months. In five months we've been doing this. Look at the guys we've signed, look at the fights that we're putting on. And then, you know, I keep saying I because I know what's coming down, you know, coming down the pike right now. So I keep saying January 1, 2027, judge us for what we did in 2026 as we look back and see what we did in one year in the sport. Guys, these other guys that have been in the business forever, they're all on Dazn. Do you even know what Dazn is? Do any. You guys know?
Dana
Nobody's tried to download the app.
Dana White
It's always watching Dazone and all these guys who hated each other six months ago are now all crammed on the same shitty little platform and meanwhile we're, we're in over like 94 countries around the world on television on, you know, so when you fight for Zoo for boxing, obviously when you're a fighter you want to make as much money as you possibly can. But what's just as important or more important is how many people around the world do you accomplish these great things and see what you do and that's what you get with us. So yeah.
Kyle
Could Zufa boxing be an avenue to do those cross promotional events that the fighters always talk about how they want to do and stuff like that. Is that something.
Dana White
I hate that she with that, you know, let's take a, you know, one of the greatest boxers ever and let him box. An MMA guy who can't box. I don't like it. There's always going to be a market for that type of shit. Like that's what Jake Paul does. Jake Paul does, you know, it's just, it's not my thing.
Chetty
Gimmicky.
Dana White
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he does, he does what I consider Goofy. And there's always going to be a marker for that. That's. People are always going to want to see that. You know, it's a one and done, and it's just. That's, that's just not what I do. Not what I do. I want to see who the best is.
Dana
I was just going to say, are there any plans to build out more UFC PIs? Because I think that's one of the best things you guys have ever done. I went to the ufcpi, really beautiful place, and it becomes like a melting pot of martial arts. Like, during the UFC BJJ events, you got all the guys like Mason Fowler, the Tackett brothers in there, you know, and they're sparring with marab. Are there any other plans to build up more Pisces?
Dana White
Well, we got Mexico and we got China, and the China one is badass. And we got. I was just in, I just did a fight and Bournemouth, England, and one of the guys said, hey, you guys are, you know, you got a sky deal now over here. You guys are in a box, and you sign all the guys, don't you? That a PI in. In England would make sense. And, yes, it absolutely does.
Kyle
You guys got to do one in Canada, too.
Dana
College wants to go work out, is
Dana White
close to the U.S. you know, Canada is. It's easy to get to the one in Vegas, but we, I, I think the next one that makes sense would be the uk.
Kyle
Where does this put Toria among the greats if he's able to pull off another.
Dana White
Yeah, I mean, this guy's on a run right now that, you know, he's obviously the, you know, you got him in Islam, pound for pound, best fighters in the world, and then, you know, those two could possibly fight. So, yeah, he's looking down the barrel of greatness, no doubt about it. And I, I, I, I believe that if Ferreira wins, you know, a third title in three different weight classes, he's the goat.
Kyle
If Toporia wins this fight, you think we could potentially see an Islam fight?
Dana White
Anything's possible.
Kyle
That'd be fucking crazy.
Dana
Yeah, the Topori fight's gonna be insane. Especially because all the shit they've been talking on social media lately, it just builds it more for the fans, like, when there's some real heat there. That was like, with the Strickland Hamzat fight. I know they made up at then, but they, they had heat with each other, and that brought a lot of eyes to that fight. So do you like when fighters kind of go at it, or do you Just sort of stay out of it and let it sort of naturally, you
Dana White
know, you have guys that can't stand each other and it gets to, you know, crazy levels, or you have guys who totally respect each other. And, you know, there's a lot of respect leading up to the fight, the boxing match that we just did with the Canadian Riziki and. And. And Chris Bill Smith, total respect leading up to the fight. And the fight was a war. I mean, like a Rocky movie type fight. Like, if. If you saw that in a movie, you'd be like, this is such. These guys can never take this kind of punishment. It was one of those kind of fights. So you don't need a bunch of, you know, talk to make a great fight. But when it happens and it's organic, it's. It's definitely fun.
Chetty
Yeah, so true. Sometimes it's the ones that you're like, no one's really talking about ends up being, like, legendary, you know, two bad
Dana White
heading in to fight each other. And. And, you know, and. And that is the case with Gaethje and Ilya. I mean, both guys have explosive knockout power, highlight, real knockouts. And, you know, it's like one of those fights. Whoever catches that chin first on Sunday night is. Is going to win that fight.
Kyle
You think people are. Are underestimating Gaethje? I mean, he's fought literally the best guys in the world. Khabib, are people underestimating him?
Dana White
A little bit, you know, because Ilya looks so good and whatever. But the truth of the matter is, both guys have unbelievable knockout power. So whoever. Whoever catches that chin first could win this fight.
Dana
Yeah, Gaethje is big too.
Kyle
I'm hammering Gaethje.
Freezer
Let's go knock out Gaethje for America.
Dana
You're picking. You're picking Sean as well.
Chetty
Freezer?
Freezer
Yeah, I was gonna ask you that. Dana, as a degenerate gambler, I'm thinking about throwing 30k on a sugar knockout. What do you think about that happening?
Dana White
Well, again, another. Any of these guys that have true knockout power and are knockout artists? Yeah, anything is possible. I mean, you know, the thing with Gaethje is people like, oh, Gaethje's at the end of his career. Gaethje's old. Gaethje still knocks people the fuck out. I mean, the guy to count him out and think that he couldn't hit Ilya, you know, and catch him on the chin is crazy. It's. It's the fun in having two guys that are both knockout artists face each other and. And obviously Sugar Sean o' Malley has devastating knockout power too.
Kyle
Is there any truth to this? Armon betting a million dollars on a fight?
Dana White
No. From what I heard is that Armin didn't, it was one of his, it's one of his buddies that bet. One of his buddies bet a million dollars on Gaichi, right?
Freezer
Really?
Dana
Yeah, he's got that rich friends.
Kyle
I mean, that's a big payout if it wins.
Freezer
Two, two leg parlay. O'. Malley. Knockout.
Chetty
Gaichi.
Freezer
Knockout. Boys, lock it in. You heard it.
Dana White
Crazy is a lot of these betting apps, you know, they don't let you bet a million dollars. I mean, they, I remember when, when, when Jake Paul bet fought Anthony Joshua, I wanted to bet $10 million on, on Anthony Joshua. I mean, I, I, I, I would have bet every thing that I owned in life on that fight. Then you know what happened then the Tom Aspinall fight happened when he got poked in the eye and I was like, holy, you know, what if, you know, what if Jake Paul does some goofy to, you know, try not. And what happened during the fight? Jake Paul literally kept diving at his legs the whole time, like, you know, trying to avoid the fight. And, and I was sitting there going, holy. If I would have bet on this fight, I'd have been sitting here freaking out that he's going to blow his ACL out because, you know, Jake Paul keeps diving at his legs and you just, you never know what's going to happen when you sports bet. Man, sports betting is so fucking crazy.
Kyle
Are you still anti sports betting? Because, well, last time we talked you were no sports betting, only blackjack.
Dana White
But no.
Kyle
Have you been dabbling a little bit in sports betting now?
Dana White
Super Bowl, I'll throw some money, some fun money on the super bowl and like that. You know, they say, oh, betting on the game makes it a lot more fun. You're a lunatic if you think that betting on the game is fun. Yeah, it's true.
Kyle
Freezer. What do you have to say to that?
Freezer
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, boys, you know, you gotta toss a few, few bucks here and there on Puka Nikua over yards.
Chetty
You bet on stuff that are, you're not interested in to make it interesting. Interesting. That's why I, I don't really, I don't bet on UFC stuff because like, it actually ruins it for me. Then I'm like biasly watching it and I'm like, I like watching it now.
Kyle
Betting on UFC is awesome.
Dana
Yeah, you can bet with your friends on the UFC and like, you can make A case like in the Derrick Lewis, Josh Hokut fight. You can make an easy case for either athlete in there. It's like you, you don't, you don't know what's going on.
Kyle
The craziest sport to bet on his Power Slap and that's.
Dana
I have no idea what's going to happen in that.
Kyle
Yeah, if you've never bet and then
Chetty
gone to Power Slap live, that would be fun.
Kyle
You got to do that.
Dana White
Sport to bet on is the fucking NBA, right? So you'll bet on the NBA and you'll, you'll be like, hey, I'm up 30 points. We got this. You go take a piss. You come back and it's. You're down too. Like, what the fuck? How did that happen? They go on these last night.
Freezer
That should happen with the names, man.
Dana White
Yeah, the NBA is the worst to bet on. The fucking scores just go like this.
Kyle
What's the status of your. Your blackjack with Michael Ruben? The high stakes? Well, is that anywhere near.
Dana White
Ruben was just like, fuck, if you do something like this, I'll jump in with you. I'll. I'll do it. But, yeah, I'm working on a. On, On a big gaming. But yeah, we're already at the level where they'll let me bet. The MGM will let me bet a million hands.
Chetty
Damn.
Kyle
And in your plan for that, do you go three hands like you usually do, or just one hand?
Dana White
Yeah, you could go one or you could go three. Yeah, yeah.
Kyle
Or you'll mix it up.
Dana White
Total a million. Not, Not a million a hand, but three would be the total. A million bucks? Yeah, but I'm working on a. On a big gaming deal. I told you, I've been, you know, I've been telling you about this for a couple years. It's been a. It's been a. A tough thing to negotiate and figure out how it all works out. But we are right there.
Freezer
So what we like to hear is degenerates. Dana, if you need, if you need an intern, let. Just let me know.
Chetty
I. I feel like, Dana, you were like, naturally created to be in the fight business. You've created such great. Like, if you weren't in, you know, boxing or ufc, what do you think you would be doing with your expertise?
Dana White
Still be training like I was before. You know, I did all this, you know, I made a decision when I was 19 years old that I wanted to be in the fight business for the rest of my life. And at the time, I didn't know exactly what that meant or where it would lead. But that's what I'd still be doing because I love doing that, too. I just love being in the fight business. Yeah.
Dana
Do you ever sit back and reflect a little bit? You know, like, you've created this verb in the ufc. Like, I went down to N Tram or Michael Morales trains, and he. He's a really good dude. He has these orphans from an orphanage nearby that go and train there, and they all say they want to be in the ufc, they want to be a UFC fighter. Like, it's a verb that's been created. Do you ever sit back as an entrepreneur and reflect?
Dana White
I'm not a reflector. That is crazy. I, you know, I talk about this a lot, and especially leading up to this White House fight, unfortunately, I'm always in this mode, like, what's next? What's next? What's next? I mean, we've already got, if you look at the ufc, we've already got our fights made to mid September. Right. Or the end of September, early October. And then I'm looking at all the stuff that we're going to do this year now in boxing, and you mentioned it, I'm looking at all the stuff we're doing in jiu jitsu. Power slap. I don't know if you saw it. You see what I posted yesterday about Power Slap. This beast. Hold on, let me, let me pull this up for you guys so I'm accurate here.
Freezer
All right?
Dana White
Listen to this. This thing. God damn it. Power slapped. Record breaking month. 2 billion views and 2 million new followers in the month of May alone. 2 billion views and 2 million more followers just in the month of May alone. Our biggest month that we've ever had. That thing is a beast. We just launched Jiu Jitsu, which has been successful, and now we're starting these tournaments where, you know, young people and everybody can come participate in. In the tournaments. You guys know where I'm at in boxing. We've been talking about that since we started the, you know, the interview here and then the ufc, we're about to, you know, be on the White house lawn for America's 250. And the list goes on and on. So I'm always thinking about what's next instead of, you know what, Let me just go walk around and take this all in and think about how great that. You know what I mean? I don't ever do that ever.
Dana
So in attendance at this event. So Trump's going to be there. You have a bunch of other obviously, like, celebrities that are going to be There. Is there anybody that surprises you? Number one that's going to be there. And then also, just to clarify for people, this is like a rumor going on online. What I want to clarify is you are having a lot of troops out there and a lot of people in our military. You got them free access.
Dana White
Yeah. So what's crazy is today's Tuesday. The event is Sunday. Today is the day that I'm actually sitting down. The girl who runs all the logistics, her name's Amber. She's a animal. We're going over all the tickets today and who's coming and all that stuff. I haven't even done that yet. So that's all going down today. I think the president handed in his list yesterday, so I'm going over all that yesterday. But, yeah, majority of the 4300 people that will be there will be US military from every single branch of the military.
Dana
Yeah, because that was the thing. People were like, oh, a lot of the military should be there. And then people are like, he. He is. It's happening. So I think that's amazing.
Dana White
Will be represented at the fight on Sunday.
Chetty
Was that also a talk with the whole, like, Michael chandler waiting on McGregor thing? Was that, like, what. What made you guys make that decision? And what do you mean, like, everyone waiting on Chandler? Chandler waiting on getting McGregor?
Dana White
Yeah, I. I didn't want him to wait. I told him, you know, don't wait for anybody, man. You. You have. I've seen it over the last 25 years, guys waiting for guys, and you have a small window of opportunity to, you know, to. To. To compete in the sport. Don't wait for anybody. And Chandler did wait too long, in my opinion.
Dana
But now he's getting his White House car. That. I mean, Chandler is the most American.
Dana White
I agree.
Dana
He's one of the top Americans out there. And Chandler by KO is a. Chandler by KO is a sneaky, sneaky bet. I think a lot of people look past him. The dude has insane power, obviously. Roof, he's extremely technical. It's gonna be a tough one for him. But don't sleep on Chandler.
Chetty
Yeah, he's got a challenge ahead of him for sure. That guy's nasty, but the.
Dana
He does well. Chandler throws bombs, bro. He just throws bombs.
Chetty
He's like gaethje, though. He's just. He puts on a war. He puts on a good fight, you know, it's entertaining.
Dana
Puts on a show.
Chetty
It's gonna be sick.
Freezer
100 O' Malley's due for a knee knockout, boys.
Dana White
It's a fun Card. It's a fun card.
Freezer
I'm nuking it.
Chetty
I was gonna bring up Josh Hokut. The like, do you find it corny personally, or do you find it like, hey, this is entertaining at all.
Dana White
Not even remotely close to being my thing, you know? You know, it is my thing. The last performance he put on, that's my thing.
Chetty
Yeah.
Dana
Worried when he sees Hokut and Hokut was in roller skates getting towed by a bird scooter. He probably watches that and it's like, don't get injured. I was watching that. Like, like, bro, you're in roller skates in Albuquerque. But he's, he is an entertainer for sure. And he has, he has the hands and wrestling to back it up, you know, that's what I think. People sleep on.
Chetty
Yeah, people would hate him. But like, when he put on that fight, it's like, do whatever you want,
Dana White
you know, I, I, I'm not a fan of all the, you know, the goofy, whatever that is. He's doing Star wars or wwe. I don't know what it is, but not my thing. But that last fight he put on, that is my thing. That's why I made that fight that night. And the way that he fought, you know, him and Derrick Lewis should be unbelievable.
Kyle
That's gonna be a good one.
Chetty
Yeah.
Dana
And then we can see Gable International Fight Week. What do you think about Gable Stevenson? Do you think that's kind of the next evolution of a heavyweight fighter, or are you guys going to build them up a bit?
Dana White
I'm glad you asked me that because, you know, I just saw an interview with Pat Miletich. I don't know if you guys know who Pat Militich is, but he was like one of the early guys, you know, had a big team when we first bought the company and all this. And he was talking about Gable Stevenson and some other guys, he's like, I see what they're doing here. They're trying to take these guys from the cradle to the grave. It's like they're trying to snatch up all these young guys before they, I'm like, Matt Miletic, what the fuck are you talking about? Every time I see this guy now, he's saying fucking weird shit. First of all, Robbie Lawler was five and, oh, when we brought him into the fucking UFC in the early days, and he was from fucking Pat Miletic's camp. Robbie Lawler went on to be a multiple time fucking world champion in different organizations, including the ufc, and fought for a long time. He just retired not long ago, BJ Penn came into the UFC with no fucking professional fights. I mean, it was. It was a weirdest fucking interview I've ever seen. It's like they're trying. It's like the new UFC now, they're trying to bring these guys in early and all this shit. No, guys that we've seen that we think have potential. You know, Aaron Pico, you know, we were trying to get him early on in his career. Absolutely nothing has changed in the way that we sign guys from. From the early days to now. And. And, yeah, he. He's one of those guys that we think has potential to possibly be great, like a Robbie Lawler.
Dana
Yeah. Gables, He's. He's, like, a potentially, like, a prodigy for this wrestling pedigree. How do you guys go find talent? Like, do you send scouts out to, like, organizations like Lux and like.
Commercial Announcer
Like.
Dana
Or do you use your Contender series? Like, what are you.
Dana White
Sean are our matchmakers. And, yeah, they. They do go to these fights. When we first bought the ufc, all the fights were happening in Hawaii and Southern California, and I actually used to fly every weekend and go watch these fights live. But now, you know, streaming didn't exist then, and if we didn't go see the fights live, we had to have VHS tapes of them, and we'd have to watch the VHS tapes. Obviously. You know, when you think about our business, not just scouting fights, but, you know, promoting fights and everything else, technology has been great for us. You know, streaming and the Internet and social media has been incredible for our business. But, yeah, Sean and Mick have their fingers on the pulse of everything that's going on out there, and all the up and coming guys, and obviously the Contender series, which starts again in August, is massive for us. I mean, it's. It is the best fucking show on tv, you know, in that few weeks that. That it's on every year. And for those of you that don't know what it is, we take two of the best fighters in the world and in these weight classes that are not signed by the ufc, and obviously, and I don't do any homework on them whatsoever. I don't read anything. I don't want any bias, and I don't give a shit what you've done. You've obviously done some great things. That's why you're there fighting that night. But it's like, show me who you are right here, right now. And then I decide that night who we sign and who we don't.
Chetty
Would you.
Kyle
What.
Chetty
What percentage breakdown would you say Is like talent and record compared to, like,
Dana White
it's all about fighting. It's like. Like the Hoka thing we're talking about, that whole fucking and whatever that is, I don't like it. I don't care about. Actually turns me off, right? It sends me the other way. Then I sit there and watch him fight that night. And then I'm like, okay, I'm in now. Now I'm in. So it's all about, yeah, the two people that have stood out in my entire career fighting since I was 19 years old. I went to dinner, I was in Ireland, and I sent out a tweet, hey, who wants to come drink with me at Temple Bar? The place was packed. All these people, all these Irish people there drinking with me. And all anybody talked about me is, you have to sign Conor McGregor. You have to sign Conor McGregor. And I'd never heard of Conor McGregor. And for some reason leaving the bar that night, I was fucking drunk, maybe that's why. But I thought he was a heavyweight. So then I come back to the United States and I tell Sean Shelby, all anybody talks about is this kid Conor McGregor. And Sean's like, yeah, we're in talks with him right now. I said, oh, perfect. All right. So then we signed Conor Connor flies out to Vegas. I went to dinner with him. I got my fucking car, and I called Lorenzo Fertitta. I said, lorenzo, I don't know if this guy can fight, but if he can even throw a fucking punch, this guy's going to be the biggest fucking superstar star ever. And then Ronda Rousey came up to me at an event, said, hey, can I get, you know, 10 minutes with you? I'd like to talk to you. We went back in the. In the back room, we started talking, and in my head, I said, holy, I think I'm gonna do this. And if I do, she's the one to do it with. And I ended up signing her, and the rest is history. I called Lorenzo again after that meeting and said, I think I'm going to do this women's thing. He's like, no. And I'm like, yeah, this round of rousing, he is special. So those are the only two that have ever stood out to me, like, their personality or, you know, whatever. Before I really knew how good they could fight or whatever, you know, I knew Rhonda was good and that she was a judo, you know, whatever, but her personality, really. I said, holy shit, this woman's special. Those are the only two out of,
Chetty
like, those are pretty good. Calls. Both of them are.
Dana White
Yeah. And if the personality is there, then it's just, that's just, it's interesting.
Chetty
It's cool, man.
Dana White
Grand slam home run.
Kyle
I was watching old clips of the McGregor Mayweather, like World tour press conferences. That was with you on stage.
Dana White
We were just talking about it like three days ago. Yeah, without a doubt, the greatest time in my career was that, was that world tour. It was incredible. And what's funny is in the negotiations with the Mayweather side, you know, because, because we all had to pitch in pay for all this, right? So everything was a negotiation. And so we build out this, this world tour thing and I put Toronto on the list and they called, they're like, we're not going to Toronto. Gives a about Toront guys, you don't know. Trust me, you don't know. You don't understand because these boxing guys don't get Canada. They don't do shit in Canada. And whatever I said, I battled with these guys, you know, because they have to pay 50% of the bill to go there. You know, there's fucking planes and all this other shit. And I fucking battled hard. We went to Toronto and Toronto was fucking awesome. It was one of the, one of the best stops in my opinion. But I'm biased. I love Canada and Canadians.
Kyle
So I saw Canada is now going to get, they're going to get the fights on Paramount plus next year now too.
Dana White
And after that Rizicki fight, I want to, I want to bring him, I want to do a fight up in Canada with him too. Yeah. So I, I battled hard for Toronto on that, on that Mayweather McGregor tour and it was great. And it was, this was so fun. And what was great was, I mean, every city we went to, you know, you would think if you did a press conference the day before in la, well, the next day in New York was going to be pretty much the same. No, every day was different. Every stop was different. And what was cool too, my favorite was, you know, you know, Espinosa, the guy who ran Showtime at the time. By the time we got to England, Connor didn't know, right? But by the time we got to England, Connor had figured this guy out because Connor's so smart. He's like, this guy's a weasel. This, this guy. And literally when that played out, I still laugh my ass off when I see that clip. You shut the up and sit down. What are you gonna do?
Kyle
Where is the weasel now?
Dana White
I think he's just floating around out there. Yeah, Connor figured that guy out quick. It was beautiful.
Kyle
How do you think Connor's going to come back in his fight versus Holloway?
Dana White
You know, you don't know. That's part of the fun of it. You know, here's what I can say. I've never seen a situation we're coming back from such a long layoff is a good thing. Layoffs in this business are, you know, you got to stay active, you got to keep. Stay busy. But again, you're talking about a guy like Connor who has that knockout power, and Max Holloway's, you know, one of the greatest ever do it.
Kyle
You guys have anything planned for that, like extra press conferences?
Dana White
We're so focused on Sunday right now, and then as soon as Sunday's over, Monday will be on the grind for international flight. We can give you a bunch of information on that.
Kyle
Well, it's a big, big summer and big year for the ufc, and there's
Chetty
a small chance that it could be
Dana White
moved, because what would happen is rain.
Chetty
I've heard that. I don't know if that's.
Dana White
Rain ain't gonna stop us. Lightning is what will stop us if. If there's lightning. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, you guys have played new sports your whole life, so, you know, as soon as lightning happens, everybody, you gotta. You gotta get out of there. But lightning only happens for a certain period of time, and we'll know ahead of time, during and whatever, how long the lightning's gonna last. And we would just delay the fight. We wouldn't cancel it and do it another night.
Freezer
Let's get a little rain going. I would have.
Kyle
Your parlay gets freezer because of lightning.
Chetty
Not.
Dana White
We're going Sunday no matter what. We're going.
Kyle
Yeah, yeah. We know you're on a busy week. We appreciate you taking the time, Dana. We're pumped. Ufc, White House, this Sunday. Let's go.
Chetty
Yeah. Thanks for coming on, man.
Dana White
Congrats on your success. Boys can keep rolling. Later, boys.
Freezer
Appreciate it, Dana.
Kyle
Okay.
Dana
Peace.
Dana White
The Dan Bongino Show.
Dan Bongino
It's our movement, okay? It's ours. We built it.
Dana White
Hard truths.
Dan Bongino
There are a bunch of people out there pulling you into an information vortex, dumping the dead pig in the well, hoping you jump in. Don't jump in the well. It's a trap. Find a way out immediately. This is the nothing is happening trap, and it is an inverted sense of reality. If we don't correct it and your kids believe it, I'm sorry. This show's for nothing.
Dana White
The Dan Bonino Show.
Dan Bongino
There's only one choice, man.
Kyle
Follow and listen on your favorite platform.
Date: June 10, 2026
Host: The Full Send Podcast Crew (Kyle, Chetty, Freezer, Dana)
Guest: Dana White, UFC President
Topic: The historic upcoming UFC event at the White House, industry rumors, fight business insights, and Dana’s vision for combat sports.
In this energetic, unfiltered episode, Dana White joins the Full Send crew for a no-holds-barred conversation on the unprecedented UFC event at the White House, marking America’s 250th birthday. Dana sheds light on the magnitude of the occasion, ongoing controversies, and sets the record straight on widespread rumors. The episode also explores Dana’s take on the fight business, the evolution of UFC, and his ambitions for the future of combat sports—including Zuffa Boxing and Power Slap.
“He's just not invited. Not banned. We just didn't invite him...if this fight was in fucking Tucson, Arizona, Sean Strickland is the type of guy you keep away from other human beings.” – Dana White [11:51]
“We're so much more than a fight promotion now.” – Dana White [20:01]
“You’re a lunatic if you think that betting on the game is fun.” – Dana White [34:04]
“I’m not a reflector. Unfortunately, I’m always in this mode, like, what’s next? What's next?” – Dana White [37:40]
This must-listen episode delivers an unfiltered look into the massive scale and ambition behind the UFC’s White House event, offering insights as only Dana White can deliver. The discussion goes beyond fight hype, touching on industry vision, fighter development, business resilience, and the spirit of innovation in combat sports.
If you want to understand just how far the UFC has come and where it's headed—straight from the man who built it—this episode is a blueprint. Dana’s authenticity, relentless work ethic, and readiness to tackle controversy head-on provide a compelling masterclass for fight fans and entrepreneurs alike.