UFC president Dana White interview : SFUK's mixed martial arts reports

Just as the UFC Press Conference was finishing SFUK managed to grab UFC President Dana White for a quick interview about the UFC UK and the future of the world’s best known MMA event. After the press conference Dana came up to London Shootfighters to do a little training after class. Kamal Lock took him on the pads and then we all chatted MMA for an hour or so. What really came across is how much this man loves MMA. His enthusiasm for the coming fights, determination to bring the best fighters, make the most exciting match ups and general love of the sport were refreshing to see in someone who has the job that he has. This man is no mere suit brought in to run the show, he’s one of us, a fan and a nice guy to boot, with him at the helm the UFC is going places. This is the transcript of our conversation at the press conference:

SFUK: Has it always been part of your vision for the UFC to bring it to the UK or is this a more recent development?

Dana White : Actually we have a global strategy right now, the UK, Brazil, Japan we just did, Germany, France, the Middle East…We’re gonna be in about 25 countries by the end of this year.

SFUK: That sounds amazing.

Dana White : Yeah but we had to get it in the UK though (laughs)

SFUK: Did you have a body of market research to suggest the size of the potential audience in the UK?

Dana White : Yeah we did. We worked here with the companies RDA, Clear Channel and Sky Box Office. We got together and kind of figured out the logistics of this whole thing and we got a great response. They didn’t announce it today, I thought they were going to, but the show (on Sky) is being bumped from one hour to two hours now on Thursday nights. We’ve had that good a response.

SFUK: How come you’ve had such a good response? I mean from the advertising angle there hasn’t been a great deal of publicity about it.

Dana White : No, no, we did a soft launch. Everything we’ve done so far has been a soft launch. After this press conference today you’re going to see it get very aggressive, we’re going to get very, very aggressive here now.

SFUK: Did you have any problems with the licensing? Getting the Royal Albert Hall was amazing, I mean we heard rumours ages ago and we were like "No, no, no, we’ll believe that when we see it". How the hell did you do it?

Dana White : That’s the way we operate. If you’ve ever seen since we’ve taken over, we don’t mess around, we don’t go small, we come in and we do things the right way. Just like our first show, we did our first two shows at the Taj Mahal and then our third show was at the Meadowlands, you know, that’s big (laughs). We wanted to come into England with a bang and there’s no better way to do that than the Royal Albert Hall.

SFUK: (Laughing) You might as well do it in the Queen’s garden, I mean, that’s serious…

Dana White : No, I agree (laughs)

SFUK: And no problems at all? Not with the licensing or anything?

Dana White : No, we’ve really got this thing down to a science now, we’ve really got it figured out. Just like you said there hasn’t been any aggressive marketing until now, now were really getting aggressive with it. The only resistance we had was we were calling it "The Royal Albert Brawl", they didn’t like that so now it’s "The Brawl in the Hall" or something like that.

SFUK: Do you think the UFC coming here is going to take the MMA scene in this country to a pinnacle, create a make or break situation for us over here? We’ve suffered from a lot of bad press, like you have in the States in the past, I mean this could catalyse great things or it could get us banned.

Dana White : I know, exactly. Not only in the UK but all over the world, in these 25 countries that we’re going into and the US, this is definitely, I mean not to sound arrogant or anything like that but right now Zuffa is spearheading the movement of mixed martial arts. We’re reaching out to all the different countries and we’re really making a splash, if we can make this thing work in the next couple of years then this sport is going to be here for a long time.

SFUK: Are there plans to continue to show the UFC on pay-per-view after the live show over here? Will subsequent events be available on TV in the UK?

Dana White : Yes, absolutely.

SFUK: One of the things that’s been a problem for UK fans is the difficulty in getting the shows on tape and that once you get them you already know the results and so on.

Dana White : No no, we hoping to have the whole thing up and running so if a show goes off in the US or the UK, I mean we’re going jive live from the UK to the US, so they’ll be able to see it live also. That’s what we’re trying to do right now, we’re trying to link this up so there’s no delay. So if we have a show in the UK, the US, Japan, Brazil, everybody sees it. We’re just trying to dial this thing right now.

SFUK: I want to ask you about the pricing for the event in London, we’ve had a lot of feedback from die-hard fans who would obviously sell a kidney to be there and then there are those who are real fans but they all think it’s we bit too expensive.

Dana White : Yeah, our shows in Las Vegas, ringside tickets are $300

SFUK: Yeah, that’s about the same but the other tickets work out about 30% cheaper in the US

Dana White : The thing is if you guys have ever been to a live UFC event, it’s worth every penny.

SFUK: Of that I have no doubt - but do you not think, I mean you must be confident you’re going to sell out anyway, but possibly you will miss out some of the people that are just curious?

Dana White : It’s a possibility, we don’t know, we’re testing it out and we’ll see what happens and we’ll go back to the drawing board if it doesn’t work out.

SFUK: Let’s just say as a hypothesis that you don’t sell out, how will that affect the future of the UFC over here? Will you be coming back?

Dana White : We’re confident. We’ve pretty much got the ticket selling thing to fine art. In Vegas, the casinos and stuff love us. The reality is: We sell tickets. Boxing events they give away most of the tickets, we sell a lot of tickets.

SFUK: The fan base, it’s been underground for so long that it’s developed really strong.

Dana White : It really has. It’s like we were talking about earlier, do we think we can do this, we’re spearheading this movement, this is a sport that won’t die. The biggest politicians, the biggest media conglomerates, you name it, all tried to kill this sport a few years ago and they weren’t able to do it. I really don’t think this sport is going anywhere it doesn‘t want to.

SFUK: Have you had any feedback from politicians over here about it?

Dana White : Not yet. I read this thing in the Guardian this morning about those people, it’s the same thing we’ve been facing in the states, it’s people who are uneducated. I challenge anyone, come down and meet these guys, see what real athletes they are. I don’t have to preach to you guys, you guys know it but I challenge any of them, any day, to come down and meet a couple of these guys and tell me these guys aren’t good people and good athletes.

SFUK: Do you have plans to do live shows in other European countries?

Dana White : Absolutely, this thing’s gonna be global and we’re gonna take it everywhere.

SFUK: Thank you very much Dana. Good luck with the show.

Dana White : Thanks guys, it’s been a pleasure.