MMA Fantasy: What if Dana White never took over the UFC?

UFC CEO Dana White has earned widespread praise for the business empire he's built as an MMA promoter. The UFC, which was founded in November 1993, had been putting on multiple shows as an MMA organization for years by the time White entered the fray. Nevertheless, from a financial perspective, the company was tottering.

White worked as an MMA manager for fighters like Chuck Liddell at the time. He subsequently persuaded his friends, Vegas-based business tycoons Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta, to purchase the UFC MMA organization. The Fertitta brothers bought the UFC for approximately $2 million in 2001.

It was under their ownership and Dana White's reign as UFC president that the company turned into the world's premier MMA organization.

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What if Dana White never took over the UFC?

The Fertitta brothers sold a significant part of their UFC stakes to Endeavor (WME-IMG) in 2016 for around $4 billion, marking a change in UFC ownership. The Fertittas sold additional stakes in 2017. White remained UFC President and was even promoted to UFC CEO in 2023.

Besides, in 2024, Silver Lake is reportedly purchasing the shares they didn't previously own in Endeavor in a deal valued at $13 billion. The UFC's emergence as a global sports entertainment force is attributed by many to Dana White. The 54-year-old businessperson reportedly has a mammoth net worth in 2024, primarily courtesy of his UFC work.

However, the Fertitta brothers' UFC venture and White's reign may not have flourished if it weren't for one Vince McMahon.

Speaking to Big Boy TV in 2023, White suggested that Shane McMahon (Vince's son) tried to convince his father to buy the UFC in the early 2000s but the older McMahon refused. Shane asked him to invest in the UFC in 2009, but Vince disapproved. White acknowledged that Vince could've easily bought the UFC back then.

Watch Dana White address the Fertittas' 2001 UFC purchase and McMahon almost buying the UFC below (28:00):

Considering the variables at play, the McMahon family ownership would've been the likeliest alternative to the Fertitta brothers and Dana White-led UFC empire since 2001.

Speaking of Vince McMahon, he's credited for turning the WWE, a professional wrestling organization, into a tremendously successful international sports entertainment brand. Incidentally, the McMahons sold their majority stakes to UFC parent company Endeavor in 2023, leading to the UFC-WWE merger in a $21-billion-plus deal.

Regardless, assuming that the Fertittas and White were out of the equation, the McMahon family would've possibly run the UFC in a similarly brilliant fashion since 2001.

Their business success with the WWE is indicative of the genius entrepreneurial prowess the McMahon family, particularly Vince McMahon, possesses. Perhaps they, too, would've similarly sold their stakes to Endeavor in 2016 to significantly boost the company's coffers.

However, a key difference would've been the existence of the lighter weight classes in the UFC. Many in the professional wrestling community have long accused McMahon of being biased toward heavier/bigger athletes, seldom giving lighter/smaller athletes a promotional push.

On that note, a McMahon-led UFC would've potentially been bereft of the flyweight, bantamweight, and featherweight men's divisions. In the women's MMA realm of the UFC, it'd have possibly had the featherweight and perhaps a lightweight division rather than the current strawweight, flyweight, and bantamweight divisions.