President of UFC talking more than just trash

Kerith Gabriel, Philadelphia Daily News

Friday, Aug. 7, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

There’s more to Dana White than trash talk and a foul mouth. In fact, it’s been his brash method of thinking — and speaking — that has made the UFC president look like a genius as he continues to guide a sport once regarded as “human cockfighting” into a sophisticated brand of in-your-face action that men ages 18 to 34 — and women — can’t get enough of.

In advance of tomorrow’s UFC 101 event at the Wachovia Center, the Daily News grabbed White and picked his brain on Philly, his competitors and what it takes to have the foresight to see a good thing when it punches you in the face.

Why Philadelphia? What attracted you to this city?

I am so happy to be here. This is a great city, a phenomenal fight town, rich in boxing history and tradition. We’re overdue out here on the East Coast, and it’s the UFC’s time to showcase our talented group of fighters. I am happy to be here, but I can’t wait to go to places like Boston, New York; it will happen, if it happens tomorrow or seven years from now, it doesn’t make a difference to me, and it’s gonna happen everywhere else around the world. There’s no stopping (the UFC.) There’s no stopping it.

How important is it to get away from the Vegas lights and book more cards in other parts of the country, especially here on the East Coast?

We want to start doing more shows on the East Coast. We have a great (expletive) fan base out here. Now, we’ve got Pennsylvania and, like I said, we are trying to open it up (to other cities) more and more, so we’ll be coming back to the East Coast a lot.

What do you credit the continual rise of the UFC brand and this sport of mixed martial arts to, even though many people still see it as barbaric?

A. I credit it to a lot of things actually. For one thing, it’s how exciting this sport is; two, it started with an incredible underground Internet fan base that just continues to grow everyday; and three, is the fact that we are just dominant with males 18-34. This sport is very addictive. I mean there are people right here in this room (at the Independence Visitors Center) that hated this (expletive) five years ago and now they (expletive) love it. Hell, me being one of them nine years ago, I wasn’t a huge fan but once you get touched by it, man, this (expletive) is addictive.

You told our boxing writer Bernard Fernandez a few months back that you feel the UFC will be bigger than the Super Bowl and the World Cup in terms of growing popularity in the sports world. Explain, please.

I stand by that (expletive) man; look we just had a pay-per-view event in (UFC) 100 that was the biggest grossing pay-per-view of all time. We just a did a deal down in Mexico to air UFC 100 and we got 25 million viewers for that — which are just astronomical numbers. Then they were frickin’ begging “more, more, more” and we put together a taped show of fights from guys that are fighting on this (UFC 101) card and it pulled something like 17 or 18 million viewers...The next 10 years are going to be a hell of a lot easier than the first 10. The biggest problem for us is time; there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things that we want and need to get done.

I know you are sick of talking about this, but heavyweight fighter Fedor Emelianenko just signed with Strikeforce even though you guys were pursuing him. What happened on both sides? Because a fight between him and your heavyweight Brock Lesnar would be historic.

We went in there 100 percent ready to make a deal and we we knew that it was not happening and (snickers) I was literally miserable for two days (that we couldn’t pull this off). I’m telling you, if you were on this (phone) call … it wouldn’t have mattered if we flew to Russia and sat on his lap we weren’t doing a deal that day — it just wasn’t gonna happen. We offered him a great deal, a great deal. I guarantee you the deal that he got at Strikeforce (pauses) isn’t even in the (expletive) same universe as what we offered him. The deal he got at Strikeforce probably isn’t even the deal he got with Affliction.

Thoughts on your competitor Strikeforce?

A. Competitor? They have no money, no money. They have no fighters; they have nobody. They are a small-time show that’s trying to act big. They have guys who haven’t defended their titles in like two years, two years!

Strikefarce, man. It’s a (expletive) joke.

Gabriel is a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. The Sun and Daily News are sharing stories in covering UFC 101.