50 of the best moments of Dana White’s career
By Amy Kaplan
UFC president Dana White turns 50 on July 28 and to celebrate the milestone FanSided MMA contributors have come together to share some of their favorite moments from White’s long career.
Today is a special day for UFC President Dana White — he turns 50 years old. This is a huge milestone in anyone’s life and should be celebrated in a way that is unique to the birthday boy. So, with that in mind, FanSided MMA contributors have come up with 50 of our favorite moments of the UFC boss’s career (in no particular order).
Happy birthday Dana!
Spike TV Deal
By Alex Ramirez
Before their deal with ESPN and Fox Sports, The UFC broke into the cable television market with Spike TV. The deal was made in 2005 and began with Spike TV agreeing to air The Ultimate Fighter reality series. The deal was contingent on the UFC fronting $10 million for the production cost. All Spike TV had to do was air the finished product. The gamble was a success as the show was a hit for Spike TV and lead to them into creating and airing more content such as UFC Unleashed, live UFC Fight Night events and UFC Countdown specials to promote upcoming UFC pay-per-view cards.
White credits the deal with Spike TV as saving the UFC. The deal also made White a household name for MMA fans. White made weekly appearances on The Ultimate Fighter and from there, his notoriety grew as he was able to make more and more appearances on Spike TV. Without the Spike TV deal the UFC may have folded in the early 2000s but because of it was able to sign a major deal with Fox Sports in 2011 and then a massive deal with ESPN in 2018.
Contender Series
By Amy Kaplan
When Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series (now called Dana White’s Contender Series) first launched three years ago some were skeptical. How would this be different than the already established The Ultimate Fighter and Dana White Lookin’ For a Fight series? And would this new show mean that TUF was going to be phased out? Luckily for us, DWCS turned out to not be the end of the other series and in turn became something really special.
We have White to thank for bringing us Sean O’Malley, Dan Ige, Edmen Shahbazyan, Julian Marquez and Maycee Barber among many, many others.