UFC President Dana White has stayed on board with the UFC after the sale, which he reveals didn’t go to the highest bidder, but to the person who would do what’s best for the promotion.
“The scariest part during the sale was everybody that came in that was making offers to buy the UFC, the one stipulation was that I had to stay. So then I’m like holy s—t,” White said on the Short Story Long podcast (via Damon Martin of MMA Fighting). “The Fertitta brothers were like ‘listen man, you’ve got to stay’ and it’s not that I didn’t want to stay, who am I staying with is the question? Again a testament to the Fertittas, there were higher bidders than Ari. There was a company that was bidding $5 billion. I said I don’t give a f—k about the money but at the end of the day everybody gives a f—k about the money and the Fertitta’s absolutely cared about the money but they were cool enough and smart enough to realize that we need to match him up with somebody that it’s actually going to work with and Ari was the guy. Ari was absolutely the guy.”
There is no word at this time as to whom the other bidders were or exactly how much money was offered by them for the UFC.
White would even go as far as to label himself and Emanuel as the perfect partnership.
“Now with Ari [Emanuel], he and I end up being perfect partners together. It’s really cool,” White said. “You think of a guy like Ari, if you watch “Entourage”—Ari Emanuel has no ego when he deals in business and he’s a f—king killer and I love that about him, too. For me to be able to have two perfect marriages in business is pretty crazy. Ari is f—king awesome. He’s awesome. He couldn’t have been a better guy to be the guy to come in with me again. You know how many arguments me and Ari have had in f—king almost the last four years? Zero. We’ve had zero. Zero arguments whatsoever. All the s—t with the banks, dealing with all the banks and all the s—t that’s involved now, Ari does all that. Cause that’s what Ari does and that’s what Ari is really good at. You know what him and the banks do? They let me do my thing. They stay out of the way and they let me run the business. It’s f—king great. It’s perfect.”
The next time fans can check out the UFC is this Saturday as the promotion presents UFC Fight Night Shenzhen, which is headlined by UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Jessica Andrade and Weili Zhang.
