hey folks this is dennis miller dennis miller plus one today's guest u.f.c. president dana white will talk about the recent u.f.c. $249.00 odyssey and it's intentional cancellation and then also the birth of the sport where it stands today all that as i said with u.f.c. president dana white and dennis miller plus. a folks welcome to dennis miller plus one of our guests today well i would say arguably since pete roselle got the n.f.l. on the map to a large degree i don't think anybody spahn showed a professional sports franchise like this guy he took something that was well a great idea that perilous barely registering in an odd way and has turned it into

one of the most valuable interesting exciting franchises in the world i'm talking about u.f.c. president dana white dana how are you my friend i'm awesome body are your good good i i know it's been a interesting fortnight for you i assume you've been sleeping for the last. is a strange trip that is u.f.c. $240.00 night. yeah a vast week was very interesting and. you know basically i could put on the vent on this saturday night in california at the taj palace and you know the media went crazy. government officials went crazy and they eventually got a hold of the powers that be and me to to stand down and not do this and that. well you know i have the feeling that the powers that be and the media. i think they probably played less

a part with you than your partners and then you're a businessman and i also think that you know how you are valuable your franchises now and you don't want to this merchant in any way but there's always going to be naysayers but i guess at some point of disney and he s.p.n. and the top people that each give you a call and say brother we're in business together you got to make a call and you made it right 100 percent if you give it what the media thinks and then they don't control which way i go whatsoever i they literally don't matter at all. it was e.s.p.n. and disney yes yeah so it was at the in the native american reservations near fresno right and i guess at some point the vigorish for having a reservation is you get to make the calls on that reservation i guess you'd worked out some sort of deal with the tribe not just for this event the saturday night that would have happened but for the next couple months till the country gets

a ceiling again right that's that's right if they stood their ground and did this event with me i promise them that when we go back to california they'll be the 1st event that we take to california so we're going to be at the taj palace. you know in the more california went when this thing's over that's going to be our 1st trip back shit that you know what i'm i take every of that back to lemoore california toci palace when this thing's over for them for standing by me. well i know god i know brahman guys from boston value it when somebody makes a commitment and sticks with it i have a feeling you have a lot in their area about that and also a long memory for people who screwed chalong the way so yeah good for them they could stand to the extent that they could the w w e's going to do some of the fence out of florida which sounds remarkably like this in a pristine sort of petri dish and that they've been all given the go ahead by the

powers that be and i guess you ran up against any any thoughts of doing something down the road after the our folks near fresno down in florida well like you i gave my poor friends over at e.s.p.n. the weekend off so that they could they could relax after last week and then i hit them yesterday again with a date i'm going to go may 9th so i'll get going on a card right now in the office now working on a card for may 9th. he had a card set up for this saturday and i know there are people who watch this it don't know it like some people do but there's a cat name could be because one of those eastern block monsters who wears a hat like you know the cat from the mamas and the papas used to wear when they're on the sullivan show one of those back with a fur hat and he was going up against tony ferguson for you know no toting for isn't his folks 'd the guy makes to camp name a tumble his elbows look like smurfs this guy is he throws hard he will cut you up

it was a crazy exciting bout the key beam had to fall out even before the powers that be sat on it because he got stuck right in a corner teen over knew his homeland is it the case. yeah so what happened is you know everybody knows how this played out because as this thing started to progress and we got to where we are now we would literally do a bunch of work and the world would change overnight while you know would wake up the next day and all the rules would change again. so. hubby bent it up getting himself into a situation where he got shipped back to russia it wasn't he didn't want to do it it didn't it wasn't his choice it was what happened so you know it was nobody's fault we all made some mistakes leading up to that because we didn't see the future in what was going to happen. but you know. we're going to now many going to do the the degree of certitude on the other side of this argument that everybody knows

we're going to be shut down or you know i'm not certain of my guesswork i guess to be on that side of it anymore to be honest nobody knows this thing the sinks the oddest thing that's happened in my 66 years on the planet when an ass kicker from iraq coming out dana figured out a way to maybe go ahead with it with a skeleton squad of all volunteers and something that debbie debbie he's now going to do quite frankly and you know i only say that because i think of that as more like the ice capades and u.f.c. surreal sport and not you know mcmahon's always treated me nicely over the years but i'm just saying that's a show this is a sport so the 2 different thing right but the fact that this is going forward in the u.f.c. is very frustrating to a lot of people they when when you could not jump in they brought in this young kid who is just unbelievable good for good good for him for justin for jumping in at the last minute right yeah no doubt but both guys for accepting the fight with all

the circumstances that are going on it's tough for guys to train in and you know a lot of unknowns who just trusted me and said all right man who hope will train we don't know where this fight is going to be it we don't know how this is all going to go down but we're in. a really appreciate it respect my guys and it's one of the reasons that i've been fighting so listen at the end of the day. you know and i don't mean to say this in an arrogant way or anything like that i don't need to do this ok i can go home and quarantine myself too and just sit in my house and build these things over and you know and ride this thing out but but i built that way and i have a commitment to my 350 employees that work for me and expect it you know get paychecks and take care of their families and my over 600 fighters who also have to take care of their families now instead of hiding from this then my pet thought

process is always like let's get out in front of the this and we beat it how do we you know figure out the solutions to these problems that's the way that i always think it's the way that i've always thought and. you know and i appreciate the fact that obviously my employees and my fighters do appreciate that and they stood their ground with me and they were ready to go out and perform so. in this whole thing i think what the fans and the fighters have found out is what we always really knew the media sachs ok the media is full. there are a bunch of liars and they only care about themselves me my father my mom my fighters my employees my fans have all sort of you know this is sort of a real cool bonding experience where you can find out who's real and who's not. yeah the bunker men in the bunker friendships built in the bunker you know it

bothered me about the naysayers then and i know there's a lot of guys out there whose rice ball is to chip away at guys who have you know power or sport or make money it's just the way we live and the right now but i didn't like it when they said that they were being frivolous about it i always said she says now i think this cat's as serious as a heart attack about the way he does business and every time i've gone to one of that it's locked down and i know you take carrier thank you that must a bothered you particularly when you heard him say he's being completions here yeah so all that you know that i don't care about the health and safety of the fighters is all we care about this didn't just pop up at the coronavirus with health and safety in this sport is something that we look at every day and take very seriously and the reason that we have the track record that we have in our track record is nobody's ever died and there's never been a serious injury in the history of the u.s. state it's because we spend the money to make sure that these people are safe.

and. that the media is what it is it's it's always going to be that way and it's not it's not getting better it's getting worse. last week i'm going to give you an example i didn't exist i didn't interview with it with a guy named brett okamoto from e.s.p.n. and i told him that he's the only guy i did this interview with i told him that i was and i was i was in the process of securing an island and we were going to do. you know fights on this fight i'm in and i had to do international flights there because we can't get international people into the into the country right now and if i need to invite only in the u.s. i'm going to smoke all the u.s. talent and we're not going to have enough people to fight i need my international talent pool to make this thing work. people start writing stories off that story and then i was hearing that u.f.c. $249.00 was going to be on the island and i just bought at no point that i'd ever

say anything like that people don't get if if they're right they take this they just write basically whatever they want and don't care if it's true or not nobody ever calls the fact checker any of this type of stuff i mean just schrade up lines people were just you cannot believe anything that the media sensed and for whatever creepy reason these guys had even people that cover our sport they did not want us to 49 to happen no matter what just because they didn't want it to happen and they felt like they could have the power to stop it. that's what the media is economics you can see why dana helms the sport why his fandom has loyalty and that's why it's sold for well go back and look at the sale i think it's north of 4000000000 with that sort of money i thought the island he bought might have been manhattan hey folks will be right back to talk about you have seen the bigger picture right after

this with dana white you have seen president on dennis miller plus one.

oh it's a code 1000 pandemic change the international system don't have the us train of relations been altered and is the west experiencing buyer's remorse would be easy.

and hey folks welcome back to dennis miller plus one our guest today and broke at the all black forum because when you go to fight he and rogan make johnny cash look like he dug pastels i mean it's absolutely crazy. it broke out the so day daylight present the u.f.c. we're talking about $249.00 but i want to talk about the sport just in general where it's such an interesting tale day an area it really is a american success story no wonder you're so big on on the american scene what sort of state do you find the staying in at the beginning what tell me about stumbling across i know you are a boxer how do you find u.f.c. where do you and what's your steps yeah so so me and my partners the fertitta brothers we we grew up together it's and lorenzo and i had always said we wanted to do something in the fight business you know and. we started one night frank his

brother and i were at the hard rock hotel and casino in vegas and there was a u.f.c. guy there named john lewis and we saw him and frank said i've always wanted to learn the ground fighting you know jujitsu and i said well i know they got one over we started talking to him and we set up a lesson for monday at our offices and. we started taking jujitsu him became addicted to it and fell in love with it and john lewis started to bring some of the u.f.c. guys in to train with us and we were blown away how smart these guys were in and you know all the stigma that was attached to the u.f.c. at that time you know it was all bullshit these guys were actually really smart good guys with families and not what we expected so i started representing tito ortiz and chuck labelle at the time and through that i got a huge contract battle with the old owner bob meyer what's over tito ortiz his contract and one day he flipped out on me and said there is no more money i

probably don't even have an open enough money to put one more event on and i was like damn we hung up the phone and i called the fertitta brothers and i go i think the u.f.c. is in trouble and i think we can buy it and i think we should and we started the negotiations and a couple months later we own the u.f.c. for $2000000.00 but at that play you almost get the 3 letters and some beat up chainlink fence octagon right i've a little bit better there's a not a real infrastructure at that point was that's literally all we own those like 26 contracts and an old wooden octagon and those 3 letters you have see which really hadn't even been trademarked or protected at that time. now you move it up till today and folks i'm telling you it is a world wide event and when he talks about those fighters if you ever watch one of these $24.00 seventh's about these guys there are some authors system there man there are hard roads travelled there are guys who have been saved by this forget they were always worried about people dying there have been people 1st again in

that octagon man the commitment broke let's take this fight that just didn't come off to be business face again he's probably the best in the world right now but quite frankly his thing is to get you down and he is just on you forget it it's a straight jacket the guy's a genius on the mat he's like dan gable when he used to wrestle in college and then there's the strikers tony ferguson more like that coming in with the elbows and the kid who is replacing him quite honestly i mean i would love to see compete but this fight was going to be a bloodbath between gay cheater and ferguson right dana yeah yeah very very violent fight that was going to be. were just trying to figure out how to make a fight happen still you know so these guys can both. get this thing under the belt and then the winner will be ready for up be when you know he comes back hopefully in september or october or whatever the hell's going on with this stuff at that

point in time what are you looking at me i know you said you're going to give disney and have believe me i grimace feel like the chino and godfather is 3 days trying to get out and they keep pulling back in all of a sudden uyghurs been called it again because everything's the thing and. how what would you look for may 9th which you would which are you don't want to tip your cards or anything but would you be looking at could be even ferguson or would you be looking to gauge in 1st in or would you be looking at a wholly different card. yeah you can't do a b. because it's ramadan now so he's a he's a devout muslim so ramadan is going on he's out till september october so yeah i mean gauging in ferguson is a fight to make it's such a good fight to the top ranked guys in the world. and like you said it's a very violent fun fight so. you know i would like to make that fight again but i'm now one of my 4 cards back now. i've had to postpone for these cards so

i have nothing but talent right now i'm going to build an unbelievable the best card ever made like the 1st prelim of the night you're going to go holy that's the 1st pretty woman and i did all the crazy for it up to the many different. if i see if i see connor diaz anywhere but at the top of the times. this is the system you know the martial arts they get a history of the planet or if god is not out there that last fight that you know you've got to give it to serenity i mean nobody is more of a gamer and a history of the game that serota get i mean the guys won i believe for buyouts but i'm telling you gonna be greater came in that night there's just some guys who throw sparks off right dana soon as i looked at him that night and he looks ready to preen man and he just killed him right off the bat. yeah unbelievable

performance i mean everybody was questioning you know where it was at with all the things you've been through he's been off for a long time you know how is he going to look and he looked damn good yeah. we're talking to dana like you have see president we when we said we're going to talk to dana we got a boatload of social media questions let me lay a few on you here and trust me i have a cursory knowledge of u.f.c. in that act but i listen i never miss about and ever miss pay per view a tragic goal i read a lot about it there are people who are dug deep on the u.f.c. and they all showed up for questions here robbie jackson on facebook will call b. and tyrone be a fight for u.f.c. 249 when it returns. listen. people say stuff publicly you know i want this fight i want that fight you know people are calling each other out . but it doesn't mean that that they necessarily want to certain fight so it

doesn't always you can always listen to what you hear people saying that they're calling this guy out of that guy out listen obviously that's a great fight to make i make that fight the minute i'm telling i think rogan is unbelievable fer a guy like me who doesn't know it all a guy who makes you feel like you're in a man's sport you know that you know who knows it who lives that life i think grogan's 10 out of 10 for you. he's incredible leaf he i actually credit him for part of the success. that the this sport has had because when you listen to rogan think about this when we bought the company the one thing that was going to be the hardest part to explain a breakdown to the casual fan to bring them in is the ground game and rogan is so good at breaking down the ground game while it's happening he's 2 steps ahead of where they are actually in a fight and he's telling you this is what's going to happen next and then he's going to go over here and he's going to do that and after

a while people really understand and get the ground game broken his and the other thing about rogan is. when you listen to him talk about the u.f.c. and when he's breaking down a fight you know he just not a talking head who's getting paid to do this this guy loves what he's talking about is knowledgeable about it and it's just his passion comes through in every. every broadcast of u.s.c. yeah plus it gets jacked up for man when somebody says i mean you know you do hear that wow when the guys long for that cave wall drawing stuff and rogen and plus after the match nobody makes me laugh harder than when somebody is going off at a completely just death endorphin driven thing and judges defense of their life it sort of leans back and he's laughing because some of these guys get so crazy after the match it's just an outer loop blast all right indeed barry on facebook said i would be curious to get this there i would be curious to know if he feels the

u.f.c. fanbase has diminished and more and more fights are pushed to pay per view subscription sites what are its thoughts on the streaming services would he ever think about creating the ultimate fighter series again we have $3.00 questions there streaming is a got it's simple fact is streaming syria what are you going to do go back to you know a c d's or 8 tracks a tear or. exactly streaming you hear it and what's crazy is if you think about this pandemic that is going on right now it has really been massive for streaming i mean everybody we're streaming right now i mean you know how many people are going to live on instagram and all these other things and disney disney plus just just hit 50000000 subscribers and the list goes on and on listen streaming is here we were one of the 1st ones to jump into it and believe in it and it's been fantastic for our business and long term i always had this just

this goal and this dream that i would build this this were. it is asian to be a global sport right it would be a time in a day when the whole world could watch a fight at the same time on the same channel and we're getting closer and closer to that now. it's about to happen and i love the things that we're doing right now at e.s.p.n. and and they've been incredible partners to us and i'm looking forward to the next 5 years with these guys jeff house and thus when they call a few days it's a brother were taken heavy in coming here we gotta move this you do it is the business we have chosen we didn't spend it had the life you have fire with dana why present the u.f.c. let's wrap it up with sam cohn on facebook asked i'm interested to see this what sort of memory it is what's your favorite us you have seen memory of all time and.

and the other question that i had about the ultimate fighter the ultimate fighter is coming back we're working on the right now so i think at the end sounds like great then you can trace back up people. just just igniting their dream that it was great to watch very exhilarating. i love i love every minute that of that of being a part of that experience now and my greatest you have seen moment it's so hard to pick one because there's been so money when you take a company from where this thing was to where we are today there's just so many incredible moments and you know our 1st a 1st time back on on paper view our 1st time on fox our 1st time on e.s.p.n. . you know so many milestones breaking out we think about all they had were whites and. events that have happened at madison square garden we finally get into new york and destroy the all time gate record at madison square garden $80000000.00

gate and the closest thing to it is $11000000.00 so i mean i could go on for days with amazing milestones. my favorite moment recently i was in vegas for a fight tom brady walked in it's like literally the man walks in goes up to mark davis and hugs them and a hairdo thunderstorm breaks up between the 2 to 1st fronts. the next i knew it was big they know and the next day every story in the world was about brady go into the l. and i said they have arrived everybody is watching what's happening ringside there and you run a hell of a hell of a blot mad you're like rick in casablanca then i appreciate your time i'm so happy for your success you've always been a mensch and if i'm if those people are watching from that reservation in fresno sorry i'm blanking on the name trust me this guy i'll bring it there he doesn't

deliver false false favors like that take care brancaccio holler everybody. right there you go anyway thank you dana begs your spiller plus we're cherishing it. when else so seems wrong. but i'll roll just don't call. me. yet to see pout he's been absent. and in danger because of the trail. when something find themselves worlds apart. just in the common ground.

well to them that is just every small cycle don't while you're 18 with. e.c.v. really please see on by and you can receive usually from the police. to take the safe cool ship fly off to sea next you don't. get a solution safety feature on your mobile ship slowly. the world is driven by a dream shaped by phone person those. military

thinks. we dare to ask. has changed american lives but pharmaceutical companies have a miraculous solution. based drugs the people who are chronic pain and believe that their opioid prescription is working for them on the remedy he said to to the price that they pay closer dependency and addiction to opiates to long term use that really isn't scientifically justified and i'll study actually suggested that the long term effects might not just be absence of benefit but actually that they might be causing long term.

live from the world headquarters of the r.t. america in our nation's capital this is the news with rick sanchez. fire buddy i'm rick sanchez and we welcome all of you from all over the world who are watching osis specially those of you who are using the portable t.v. app and places like india where we understand tens of thousands of people are now tuning in we're focusing this hour on non this is important we're focusing on non coronavirus stories we're going to get on with a bizarre and somewhat mysterious scenario that's unfolding in the busiest the most important waterway in the entire world armed some of tours have hijacked.