How did the UFC and Dana White succeed where others failed?

[Levi_]

I wonder how many of you guys were actually watching the sport when it went black from PPV. Dana is a jerk and an easy guy to hate- but that doesn't change what he has done.

AT this point, no single factor from the early days is going to explain everything. The fact that the UFC has continued to dominate while others continue to fall for all this time makes a much larger statement. Yes, he is corrupt, but he has run the business aspect of the UFC in a way others can't seem to match.

Hopefully we have someone come along that has a great business sense as well as deep pockets, as that is what it will take to challenge the UFC.

 

[blaseblase]

The UFC bought the other promotions that were making noise.

 

[MuddyFugger]

You need an asshole to make the trains run on time

 

[2004 account]

Lobbying, hostile financial takeovers, monopolistic practices, defamation campaigns, etc



A bunch of unethical borderline illegal grey area bs

 

[Willek]

The hard work and business acumen of Dana White.

 

[Cooliox]

Monopoly...

Hence the billion dollar Antitrust Lawsuit

 

[Private Whatley]

The Ultimate Fighter and Pride losing its tv deal due to its Yakuza ties. The former kept it alive, the latter vaulted it.

 

[jitzmonkey]

It was run by a super rich and influential mob like family.

Pride was the only one who could challenge them as they were literally run by the Yakuza lol.

Saudi could also, if they can be bothered to do it. One of the richest gangs in the world.

I might need to fact check; but aren’t they related to the Fertittas who were wiseguys from Galveston TX?
Something to do with gaming/entertainment on the gulf coast, no?

Interestingly enough though, the single most important entity which made the UFC mainstream was The Ultimate Fighter Show. A show Dana White was strongly against doing.

TUF (1) and making guys fight for a never before offered (to a UFC rookie) contract on live tv (so that the masses could see how crazy mma could be) was a stroke of someone’s brilliance.

 

[Corrado Soprano]

TUF (1) and making guys fight for a never before offered (to a UFC rookie) contract on live tv (so that the masses could see how crazy mma could be) was a stroke of someone’s brilliance.

TUF 1 created so many MMA fans and the Griffin-Bonnar fight was the perfect crescendo.

 

[David Street]

I was a PRIDE fan but ended up a UFC fan, as John McCain a boxing fan kept trying to destroy UFC. That is when UFC became a real part of USA, political parties and fights brought them to the forefront and kept them there, other MMA came to try to steal their thunder and history, but UFC was and is too much a part of American culture now days.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

the extreme popularity of WMMA and explosive fights like Justine Kish vs Felice Herrig really put UFC on the map.

Outside of the Ronda bump, Wmma hurts the ufc

 

[LiQuiD42]

Mafia connections an bribery.

 

[Neck&Neck]

Higher rate of intelligence and athleticism

 

[HHJ]

Head-start
Lot of balls
Gambled heavily to make it work
Self-implosion of Pride/Exodus of top talent

 

[Dr Fong]

It's extreme revisionist history to think the Vegas mob built the UFC from 'nothing', which is the narrative they try to spin. They helped collapse the business itself and then buy it up for scrap, but they took over the established brand.

As they said themselves, they didn't buy a company, they bought three important letters. If it was so easy to establish a rival brand to the UFC, then the Fertittas themselves wouldn't have invested so much energy and money in taking it over.

SEG had already done a lot of work to build the brand. The UFC was even featured on an episode of Friends. A lot of people were at least familiar with the brand even if they didn't watch it.

Some early UFCs were doing 300,000 PPV buys. Fertittas wouldn't consistently start matching that until Chuck vs Randy 3. Took them four years, almost thirty PPVs and 10s of millions just to get the UFC back to where it once already was. That shows you how big those early UFCs actually were that they could generate buys like that from scratch.

The established UFC brand + billionaire capital behind it = nobody else can realistically compete in the US.

 

[Credo]

They should thank Tito´s sweet ass for the success. Like for real.

 

[Phisher]

What do you think is the reason UFC became the top dog?

Luck?
Ruthless aggression?
Marketing?

how did the UFC end up dominating the fight game with all the top stars?

Dana convinced his rich friend from high school, who's actually a good businessman, to buy the promotion after he read about SEG working with Larry Hazzard and the New Jersey commission to create the unified rules, which is an accomplishment that Dana and Lorenzo later took credit for despite not even being involved with MMA at the time.

Lorenzo then used his position on the NSAC to block the adoption of the unified rules in Nevada so that he and his brother could force Art Davie and Bob Meyrowitz to sell the UFC for pennies on the dollar.

Then Lorenzo and Frank basically treated the fighters as poorly as they treat their casino workers until they got the idea to do TUF, which Dana was opposed to. Then, the sport finally started to get mainstream notoriety, with the fighters still being treated like shit and being grossly underpaid.

Outside of telling his smart friend about a business opportunity, Dana was not responsible for the UFC's success. You can see his actual level of business acumen in his side projects like The Ultimate Surfer, Power Slap, and Zuffa Boxing, which could never even get off the ground.

Dana is a horrible promoter. He's better at tearing guys down than actually selling fights and doesn't even really try now that the UFC has guaranteed money from ESPN. Look at how he embarrassed the promotion with the Saudis because he assumed that he could feed them an Apex-level Fight Night card for a nine figure payout and a continuing relationship.

 

[Phisher]

They should thank Tito´s sweet ass for the success. Like for real.

Tito carried early Zuffa-era UFC and got nothing in return, not even one of those office jobs "for life" that they gave Forrest, Chuck and Matt Hughes pre-Endeavor because of the beef between Tito and Dana.

 

[orca]

dana white
/thread