Dana White's "The Art Of War"

Sun Tzu once wrote,

"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable ways of carrying it on."

By this standard, we must know that Dana White thoroughly understands the "evils" of running a giant corporation.

Dana White has often taken criticism for being a ruthless business person.  Many now believe that releasing Jon Fitch from his UFC contract crossed some sort of line to the point of abuse of power.

I can see their point.  Jon Fitch has proven himself to be one of the best MMA fighters in the world.  So with that in mind, how could the UFC let him go and use his talent for another organization, when it would have been very easy to give Jon Fitch what he wanted?

Well, unfortunately for Fitch, despite his reputation as a fighter, he had little negotiating power to bring to the table.  Dana White is a smart business person.  He is not going to pay a fighter more than market value, unless the possibilities for his own financial gain are too great to ignore.

At the present time, there are no fighting organizations that can pay Jon Fitch what the UFC pays him, and still make a profit.  As organizations like Affliction, EliteXC, and the IFL have struggled, or died off, the chances of future competitive offers for Jon Fitch and others like him have diminished further.

In the past, Randy Couture, BJ Penn, and Jens Pulver were all stripped of their titles, due to contract disputes, so if you thought that the UFC title by itself was sure bargaining leverage, there goes that argument.

In Randy Couture's most recent contract disputes, the only reason the UFC ended up giving Couture a significant raise, was because they knew that bringing Couture back would generate ten times the money for them that they would need to pay Couture.

The UFC title, and all other fighting  by itself can easily be stripped off of a fighter, in most cases, without serious repercussions.

Sun Tzu states that, "In general, the method for employing the military is this: Preserving the enemy's state capital is best, destroying their state capital is second-best..."

The lesson that Sun Tzu was trying to teach is that if you get what you want, then you have won.  However, if you cannot have what you want, the next best thing is to destroy it.

As good as Jon Fitch is, he is much better inside the UFC than he is outside of it.  I can just imagine the kind of things Dana White would have said about Jon Fitch.

"Jon Fitch fought GSP, and got F$#%ing destroyed."

" Jon Fitch got the s#$% beaten out of him for 25 minutes by GSP, and you're trying to say he's a top fighter?  This is unf*()ing believable."

Dana White would have done everything he could to destroy Fitch.  And in the end, he would have lost a fighter who, although he is talented, may never have the skills to beat the likes of GSP.

Furthermore, Dana White would have sent out a stern message to all others who try to negotiate with him : My way or the highway.

All Dana White did is what any business person would do, and that is take advantage of a good situation.  As Sun Tzu says, "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and to strike at what is weak."

Now I know there are a lot of people out there who are going to say that Dana White isn't fair, and that he needs to treat his fighters better, but the truth is that he is only running a business the way that businesses are supposed to be run.  As Sun Tzu, or any business person will tell you, "If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches."

That's CAPITALISM!  Now I'm not the biggest fan of capitalism anyway, so I can understand why people don't like what the UFC is doing.

However, if you're going to get upset about what UFC is doing, then I expect you to start boycotting Walmart, and McDonalds, and Microsoft, and Monsanto and all other big corporations as well, because they all do the exact same thing.

I am sure that there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this, and so i say unto those whom may disagree: Comrades, continue your fight for the proletariat.  Death to capitalism!