Dana White, UFC President

I admire Dana White for his fortitude, his work ethic, and his passion for mixed martial arts and the UFC brand of which he is captain. If it weren't for Dana White, people like me who make a living in the MMA industry, whether we are journalists, commentators, fighters, promoters, managers, agents, retailers, or ring girls — wouldn't be where we are today, and like it or not, we owe Dana White for that.

I've interviewed Dana more than 50 times over the past decade, but no matter how many times I do, I'm always a bit intimidated. He is after all, the Godfather of MMA, the Grand Poobah of the UFC.

The first time I interviewed Dana was in 2001 when I was the weekend sports contributor on FOX News Channel, and I think the first thing he said to me was, "I don't know if we're going to fucking make it, but I love this sport more than anything." Right there I fell in love with his honesty. Most people in his position would try to sell me a bill of goods about his company and the fledgling sport, but not Dana. He's honest and frank, and he's proven throughout the years that he has no problem telling anyone what's on his mind.

White was Chuck Liddell's and Tito Ortiz's manager before he became the president of the UFC. In 2001 he convinced his high school friends, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the billionaire owners of the Nevada-based Station Casino Group, to purchase the organization for some $2 million dollars.

Today, the UFC is estimated to be worth over $2 billion. A lot of that success comes from White's brash, in-your-face style of doing business. Dana did me the honor of being my first guest on Fighting Words, even at a time when he was having issues with HDNet, which goes to show you what kind of a guy he is.

"People think I'm brash, I'm this and that. Listen, this is the fight game, this isn't Microsoft or McDonald's," White says. "This is the fight game, and it's blown out of proportion too, the whole bad guy image thing."

Indeed, Dana is probably one of the nicest guys when it comes to the fans. In business, however, he can be as tough as the most hardened Fortune 500 CEO.

Dana is not afraid of controversy. He speaks his mind and often takes to Twitter or YouTube with messages to fans, journalists, fighters, judges, referees, and competitors. He has single-handedly increased sales at Pinkberry frozen yogurt stores across the country by announcing UFC ticket giveaways there, in cities where events are taking place — while he enjoys his favorite Pinkberry treat: a large original with Fruity Pebbles.

"To be honest with you, the whole social network thing and Twitter is because I don't have the greatest relationship with the media all the time," he says.

"I feel I call the media out on a lot of things and the whole internet has changed the world of media. Anybody with a website is a 'journalist,' so I just don't play their games. The thing I love about Twitter and a lot of the social networking is I can talk directly to the fans. I can cut out the middleman. I can say exactly what I want to say the way I want to say it without somebody else interpreting what I said."

White has been known to call out members of the media by name when something they say or write gets under his skin, including Sherdog.com's Loretta Hunt and Jake Rossen.

He even tweeted a four-letter salvo to the San Francisco Chronicle when the paper's sports editors refused to cover UFC 117 in Oakland, writing:

"San fran chronicle says they hate UFC and would NEVER cover the UFC and were such rude dickheads to our pr girl. Hey SFC, fuck u!!!! ... San jose mercury, oakland tribune, contra costa times, west county times, valley times and many more thanks 4 ur support!"

White makes no apologies for his public lashings.

"This isn't 1986 anymore, where the media can say anything they want about anybody and there's no way for you to respond, so when I see the media doing something that is wrong — or misquotes or misinformation or flat-out lying — I'm going to call them out on that. And I don't see what's so controversial about that," says White.

Whatever people may want to call it, it's working. The UFC has supplanted boxing and the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) as the world's biggest pay-per-view draws, and ratings for its TV productions on SpikeTV and Versus have far exceeded network executive expectations. A network television deal with ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX is in the cards in the very near future, and even an Initial Public Offering on Wall Street is not so far-fetched.

While Dana is widely credited for taking the UFC to where it is today, he doesn't always make unilateral decisions. Majority owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the billionaire brothers who own the Stations Casino Group in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founded Zuffa, LLC (UFC's parent company) with White, have a big say in what goes on.

"There are a lot of decisions I make on my own, or Frank and Lorenzo and I will get together as a team and make decisions," he says. "The greatest thing I have is I've been in the fight game a long time. I know this business better than anyone does. Having two really smart, really open-minded businessmen as my partners is huge. Part of the reason this thing has become so big is because of the friendship and the trust that we have in each other."

White's critics like to say he was just a guy in the right place at the right time, lucky to have friends with deep pockets. But contrary to the petty jealousy of some of those critics, it takes a lot more than convincing two rich friends to invest in a controversial company and concept to get to where he is today. After all, the Fertittas have a lot of friends. How many of them are multimillionaires after going into business with them?

Dana laughs when I ask him if he got lucky knowing the Fertitta brothers.

"The timing and everything lined up perfectly, but people think Frank and Lorenzo and I had been hanging together for 15 years," he says. "What people don't know is Lorenzo and I hadn't seen each other for 10 years, until we bumped into each other at a wedding. Timing is everything, and anyone who knows me knows that I've put the work and dedication and time into this thing, but yeah, I've been very lucky, I wouldn't disagree with that, you know."

Before White "got lucky," he was offered a position to run another mixed martial arts promotion, the World Fighting Alliance, a rival Las Vegas promotion that had fighters such as Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Matt Lindland, and Ricco Rodriguez on its roster. I ask Dana if the...