Dana White: Power Ranking His 10 Greatest Achievements for the UFC and MMA

UFC President Dana White is one of the most controversial figures not just in the sport of MMA, but in all of sports. His up-front personality and often times foul language isn’t exactly what we see from other executives in the major sports.

But somehow, this strong-headed businessman from Boston has turned himself into a household name while helping to make the MMA promotion the fastest growing sports organization in the world.

Given his success as the man in charge of the UFC, White’s list of accomplishments seems to grow on almost a weekly basis. At times, it’s almost as if we get a new piece of huge breaking news every morning.

He may not be the traditional suit-and-tie businessman that you would get from someone like Bud Selig from the MLB or Roger Goodell from the NFL, but White’s success in promoting his sport has to make him a strong candidate for being the best executive in all of sports.

So as we inch closer to the very important inaugural UFC on FOX event, let’s take a look back at the 10 biggest moments of Dana White’s career as UFC President.

10. Purchase of Strikeforce

One of the biggest pieces of MMA news in 2011 was the announcement that the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa, had purchased its biggest competitor, Strikeforce.

The news broke on March 12 when Dana spoke with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani about the purchase.

The merger has since brought us new direction for Strikeforce under the Zuffa banner while setting up former Strikeforce champions such as Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem and Dan Henderson with fresh deals in the UFC.

It was also recently revealed that Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez is on his way to the UFC to compete in arguably the most stacked division in the company.

9. UFC-WEC Merger

Like they will almost certainly be doing in the coming months with Strikeforce, Zuffa merged the WEC with the UFC going into 2011. The move was loved by most, but hated by a few who believed that the merger would reduce the number of fights we would see in the lower weight classes.

On the contrary, however, the UFC has gone out of their way this year to promote the new 145 and 135-pound divisions, even headlining UFC 132 with the bantamweight title fight between Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber.

Certainly the merger made it more difficult for the lesser-skilled fighters to get on television, but don’t we want competition anyway? The merger has been great for creating more exciting fights, particularly in these two new weight classes. 

8. Purchase of Pride FC

The battle between the UFC and Pride FC is well documented. These two MMA companies competed for the better part of a decade for the right to call themselves the biggest and best promotion in the world.

Each organization had their supporters and certainly each had its fair share of top-level fighters, but in the end, only one company could survive. Given the sometimes questionable decisions made by the Pride executives, it became apparent that they were going to have to be the one to go.

With Pride on its last leg, Zuffa made the the decision to purchase the organization in March 2007. It was set to be similar to the Strikeforce purchase in that the two promotions would actively run alongside one another, but that never materialized and they eventually merged in October of that same year.

The move left the UFC as really the only major MMA brand in existence, leaving them the opportunity to pick from the best of the former Pride roster, successfully creating what is now easily the most stacked roster in the history of the sport.

7. Return to Rio

As the UFC expands its horizons internationally, one of the biggest moves that the company made this year was going south of the border to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, for UFC 134: Rio.

The main event featured the middleweight title match between champion Anderson Silva and challenger Yushin Okami. The bout was particularly interesting as Yushin Okami was the last fighter who has ever had a victory over Silva.

It was a great night for Brazilian MMA as Silva was victorious in epic fashion along with fellow Brazilians Rousimar Palhares, Thiago Tavares, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, among others. 

6. UFC 129 in Toronto

Along with its expansion into other countries, the UFC has been actively looking to create a bigger interest for the sport with our neighbors from the North in Canada.

They started slow with UFC 83: St-Pierre vs. Serra in Montreal, but have clearly seen the potential in promoting in the country as they have since had more events since, including three in 2010. But it was all leading up to the biggest one of them all...

UFC 129.

It was at this event that the UFC exploded in popularity. The event, headlined by the welterweight title fight between Georges St-Pierre and Jake Shields, was unbelievably successful as it blew away all previous attendance records, bringing in a reported crowd of 55,724 fans.

The number more than doubled the previous record held from UFC 124 and proved without a doubt that the UFC is here to stay in Canada.

5. Spike TV Deal

When the UFC decided that it was time to expand into more than just pay-per-view events, they did so by partnering with one of the most manly TV networks around, Spike TV.

The cable television channel is a division of MTV and had already been working to promote WWE’s “Raw” weekly program and although the UFC wasn’t going to be having fresh fights every week, they were able to grow by making use of Spike TV.

They did so in part by getting the UFC Unleashed and UFC Countdown programs in front of new audiences in addition to having live events from time-to-time, many of which were very successful.

Though the partnership is now coming to an end, Spike TV seems at least satisfied with how things turned out.

“Our six-year partnership with the UFC has been incredibly beneficial in building both our brands, and we wish them all the best in the future,” they said in an announcement. 

4. 1 Million Pay-Per-View Buys for UFC 66

There are big buyrates, and then there are HUGE buyrates.

After years of struggling to survive, the UFC began promoting three of their most popular fighters ever: Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz. These three essentially ran the light heavyweight division for years, but perhaps no moment was bigger than the rematch between UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and champion Tito Ortiz.

The two had battled before, but controversy arose when Ortiz began claiming that Liddell had only won the fight because he caught Ortiz with a thumb to the eye which momentarily blinded him while Liddell teed off with punches. As if Ortiz wasn’t hated enough by many fans, things only got worse with his complaints and fans were excited to see him have to fight “The Iceman” again.

The event, UFC 66, shattered all previous pay-per-view buyrates by checking in at an estimated 1.05 million buys, making it the first UFC event to ever crack 1 million buys. The previous record held by UFC 61: Ortiz vs. Shamrock had only 775,000 buys which was still a huge number, but nothing close to the monumental 1 million mark. 

3. UFC on FOX

The event hasn’t even happened yet, but the buzz is growing for the upcoming UFC on FOX event this November which will feature the heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.

Never before has one event meant more to the UFC than this one does. And as Dana White says, he is “all-in” on the FOX card.

He has lived up to that statement, too, working with UFC matchmaker Joe Silva to book an awesome semi-main event between Ben Henderson and Clay Guida in which the winner is expected to earn himself the next shot at the UFC lightweight title.

FOX has been promoting the event regularly in front of their gigantic audience, even running ads during the high-points on NFL Sundays. Needless to say, the network is excited to be working with the UFC and fans will be getting the royal package for this first card. 

2. The Ultimate Fighter

Whether you agree with the concept of a reality television program for mixed martial arts, there is absolutely no denying that The Ultimate Fighter was one of the biggest moments in the history of the sport.

Playing off of the success of programs like Survivor, The Real World and WWE Tough Enough, The Ultimate Fighter allowed fight fans to experience what it’s like to enjoy shows like Teen Mom. Normally, reality TV shows are made fun of by men, but this one just worked. It was fun, it was entertaining, it included fighting... It just worked.

The original series itself performed well in the ratings, but few could have predicted the unbelievable, sport-changing main event of the series finale between contestants Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.

Fight fans everywhere tuned in as these two young fighters battled for their lives. They battled for a victory, but more importantly they battled in an effort to become the next star in the UFC.

It was so successful that Dana White immediately decided to give a contract to both the winner, Forrest Griffin, and the loser, Stephan Bonnar. What an amazing moment for these two fighters and the UFC as a whole.

Season 1 brought us some of the biggest stars in the sport today and each season seems to bring us more and more top-level competitors. No longer do fighters have to fight for table-scraps in local events to get themselves into the big show.

They can now earn their way in by competing on a grueling, but ultimately very rewarding television program. It’s still a hard journey, but hey, it beats breaking your neck for $100. 

1. Purchase of UFC

As we counted down, you were probably wondering which event would be No. 1. Well as it turns out, it was right under your nose all along.

As a former fighter manager, Dana White understood “the fight game.” So when he saw the opportunity to get further invested into the sport, he took full advantage.

The Semaphore Entertainment Group, better known as the SEG, was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000 when White and his childhood friends Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta approached them with an offer to purchase the UFC for $2 million.

At the time, critics and boxing promoters scoffed at the idea of putting more money into a sport that was on life support.