Dana White has been running the UFC for over 20 years, but his responsibilities within the company have dramatically changed since the promotion was sold for just over $4 billion in 2016.
During a hearing in the ongoing UFC antitrust lawsuit, White testified before Judge Richard Boulware that he no longer has a hand in fighter contracts or negotiations and rarely gets involved in matchmaking outside of finalizing certain fights or cards that have already been assembled. That revelation was shocking to some because White remains the face of the UFC when it comes to the day-to-day operations, but 16-year-veteran Matt Brown says he rarely dealt with the president and CEO outside of a few rare occasions in his career.
Even under the previous owners led by Lorenzo Ferttita prior to the sale in 2016, Brown says he only dealt with White directly as he approached title contention in the welterweight division.
“When I was kind of coming up and in my prime, so to speak, making a run for the title and everything, the situation that I understood because I only spoke to Dana personally when I started getting into those top 10, top five fights,” Brown explained on the new episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Everything below that, Dana, he was clearly involved. He would talk to [the fighters] here and there, he would come back to the locker room and talk to you about it. Get little glimpses of what he wants next, but until I got into the top 10, top five, there wasn’t a whole lot of talking to Dana about it.
“But then when I got up there [in the rankings], now I wasn’t even talking to Joe Silva anymore. It was just straight to Dana.”
Joe Silva was the former head matchmaker for the UFC, but he effectively retired from combat sports after the UFC sold to a new ownership group led by Endeavor and he reportedly earned a hefty payday from the sale.
Once Silva was gone, Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard took over matchmaking duties alongside current UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell, who has largely stepped into the role that White previously filled under the old owners.
Brown says once Endeavor took over, his dealings with White effective stopped all together.
“After the buyout, this is just my own experience, I never talked to Dana or anybody other than Sean Shelby after that,” Brown said. “I never spoke to Dana on the phone about anything honestly, which was kind of surprising. I think it just got big, too, right? There’s so many fighters and everybody’s asking for something.
“I can’t imagine dealing with fighters much less 600-plus fighters. I can’t imagine what that’s like. Every single person asking for something and trying to get the next fight. That’s why they always liked me. Dana could call me and be like ‘this is who we want you to fight’ and [I’d say] OK. That was why they liked me a lot.”
Brown recounted one of the only times he sat down for a negotiation with White when he was a mainstay on the UFC roster, although truth be told there wasn’t a lot of haggling over the numbers.
“I negotiated with Dana once and that was in 2016,” Brown revealed. “It was kind of funny because I went to his office, and he kind of shows us around, it was me and my wife at the time, he shows us around. Shows us his Ferrari’s and shows us the office and finally we sit down and get to the meeting. I said ‘Dana, this is what I think I’m worth’ and he said ‘OK.’
“I was like is that it? Maybe I should have asked for more. But that was it. Went back to talking about some of the paintings on the wall or whatever kind of other shit we started talking about.”
Just because White isn’t handling fighter contracts or matchmaking any longer doesn’t mean he’s not involved with the business.
He’s handling production, sponsorships and endorsements and a lot of other issues in the UFC, but White now depends on Campbell, Shelby and Maynard to deal with matchmaking and negotiations.
Brown says in a lot of ways White deserves credit for even sticking around to do that because he could have cashed out after the UFC sold and left with a nine-figure payday.
“When you sell for [$4 billion] and Dana got I think a few hundred million out of that, you’re supposed to chill,” Brown said. “That’s literally what you’re supposed to do. I’m surprised he does as much as he does. What Joe Silva did is kind of what you expected everybody to do — take your money and go hide on a yacht somewhere. The fact that he’s even still doing anything is kind of surprising, and in my opinion, I say props to him. That shows the love and passion he does have for doing this. I respect him for that.
“Credit where credit’s due. He built a great empire, and the fact that he’s still involved with it as much as he is, it says something. He’s actually passionate about it. To expect him to still be involved in the day-to-day business and to recognize every fighter under the empire, it’s asking a lot. My biggest criticism I guess is the fact that the other things he has gone on are so silly. Like slap fighting. You going to slow down your UFC shit for f*cking slap fighting? Get the f*ck out of here. The boxing, I don’t know if it’s silly or not yet, we’ll find out. It sure seems silly the idea, but he might build that to another [$4 billion business], and I’ll eat my words.”
While Brown has strong opinions on how the UFC does business, especially when it comes to contracts, fighter pay and controlling the combat sports market, he believes White deserves praise for building the promotion into such a sports powerhouse.
Of course, Brown understands that White is going to rub some people the wrong way but that doesn’t mean he’s doing a bad job or just checked out because he’s not on the ground floor handling every single issue that arises at the UFC any longer.
“For one, when you build a business, that’s the goal to build a business — you’re not in the business, you work on the business,” Brown said. “That kind of seems the role that he’s playing now, right? But for two, some people love, some people hate Dana. Say whatever you want on his personality and the way he acts and the odd things he says and things you agree with or disagree with but the one thing you can say is he’s a f*cking grinder and he grinded hard on the business for a very long time and did a great job building it.
“You know me, as far as getting into details with the monopoly, and all the ethical shit that we don’t agree with, but the fact is the dude built a business with a good team around him that he sold for [$4 billion dollars]. You’ve got to respect that.”
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