Drama is the bread and butter of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. But what would you expect when you're in the fight game?
For UFC president Dana White, it just seems to follow him around, in and outside the Octagon. Just days before Friday's "UFC on FX: Browne vs. Bigfoot" in Minneapolis, the company's boss was a few minutes late for our scheduled phone interview. What kept him?
"Always drama," he said with a laugh. "Every day I get up, there's drama. This place is like the biggest soap opera on Earth."
Still, the prez was happy to talk about a certain ex-heavyweight champion known for providing his fare share of headaches. Other topics of interest: White grades the UFC's Fox television deal, plus talks about his superfight wish list and the rise of women's MMA. Oh, and UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta being a huge fan of the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives."
Q Would you sign Brock Lesnar to another UFC fight?
A Sure, I'd bring him back. He was the one who wanted to retire, and then he hooked back up with the WWE and did some stuff over there. But if Brock called me tomorrow and said, "Hey I'd like to come back," I'd work with him.
Q How would you grade this first year with the Fox deal?
A We're really starting to catch our stride. When we did the deal I said it's going to be a lot of work, and the work we do in the next two years is going to be the most important in the company's history. We came out of the gates and tried some new things. We're trying to figure out how to work together. People don't realize this: We do our own live production. The way that we run our live show is completely different than anything Fox has done before. They usually run everything. So we've really figured out how to work together over the last seven months. It's been great. I couldn't say better things about the relationship.
