Image Credit: WFAA
Dana White has landed on the cover of TIME Magazine for a feature story heading into the Freedom 250 card at the White House next month.
The story is written by Sean Gregory, who spent time with the UFC CEO and spoke, including shadowing White at UFC 327 this past April in Miami, where Donald Trump attended.
The piece underscores White’s influence on Trump’s 2024 re-election, with the president crediting White as a bridge to favorable podcast appearances in the lead-up to the election.
He introduced me to people I never heard of, young kids. I mean, I was being interviewed by 20-year-old kids. I’m saying, ‘Where the hell did you meet these people?’ They’re called influencers. But I did a lot. I became friendly with some of them. They’re nice kids, and they do have a big audience, and everything helps.
White believed that sticking to the traditional media outlets like Fox News would be costly to Trump’s re-election bid. On the night of Trump’s victory, White spoke at the podium and thanked many of the podcasters by name, including longtime UFC broadcaster Joe Rogan.
Rogan is a pivotal figure as TIME details how White had pushed for the podcaster to have Trump on his show for years, but Rogan rebuffed. Finally, Rogan put Trump on his show, and it was considered a major coup for Trump, but Kamala Harris did not appear on his podcast after being invited. An endorsement by Rogan followed the podcast appearance.
White doubled down on recent statements regarding men addressing mental health issues and goes against his beliefs of what masculinity entails.
Talking about it publicly, I just feel like it opens the door to make young men think that it’s OK to just f-cking go, ‘Oh, I’m having mental [health issues],’” White says in a mock whiny voice. “Handle it behind closed doors. Don’t show that weakness to anybody.
The CEO shared several details about the Freedom 250 card, including that the national anthem will be sung (this is not typical of any UFC broadcasts) and 1,200 of the 4,300 seats on the White House lawn will be given to active military members. Invites to the card have been extended to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Adam Sandler, Guy Ritchie, Tom Brady, Jared Leto, Mario Lopez, and Jason Statham.
On the criticism of no females fighting on the card, White insisted they attempted to book a 115-pound championship fight between Mackenzie Dern and Zhang Weili, but Weili is taking time off from competition after losing a five-round decision to flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko last November.
TKO projects a $30 million loss on the event, but Mark Shapiro argues that “The kind of attention, awareness, and sampling we’re going to get from audiences around the world, on that day alone, will be more than we could get in an entire year.”
The June 14 event will be headlined by Ilia Topuria defending the featherweight championship against interim champ Justin Gaethje, and Alex Pereira moves to heavyweight to fight Ciryl Gane for the interim championship.