My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 384 - DANA WHITE RETURNS (UFC NOCHE EDITION)

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

Dana White sits down with Robbie Fox in the war room just one day out from UFC Noche at the Sphere, and they discuss everything that went into the event, how rehearsals went, what the post-Sphere plans are for the UFC, and more! Plus, news on Conor McGregor’s return, this year’s MSG card, etc! #UFCNoche #UFC306 **************************************** My Mom's Basement is a weekly podcast hosted by Robbie Fox, started in March 2019, to discuss movies, music, comic books, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and more with his friends and idols alike! Subscribe on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/MyMomsBasementWithRobbieFox Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-moms-basement/id1457255205 Follow Robbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatrobbiefox Follow Robbie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobbieBarstool My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basementYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Alright, welcome back to My Mom's Basement. It is Robbie Fox here in the War Room with Dana White, just one day before UFC Noche. How are we feeling one day removed from, obviously, the biggest production the UFC's ever put on? Yeah, I couldn't be more fired up. uh last night we went through the it was the first full rehearsal of the show last night and uh it's so badass so what's what's that like like the first full rehearsal do you have are fighters present for that do you have people in their place like doing walkouts and stuff like that yeah you have stand-ins that that act like fighters um and you go through every element from

top to bottom so these guys closed up last night at like two in the morning went and slept a few hours and went back in today and are doing it all over again you just so from now until literally till the first person gets the door opens the first person walks in rehearsal rehearsal rehearsal from here on out and the movie itself i assume you saw that in the sphere was, the first person walks in, rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal from here on out. And the movie itself, I assume you saw that in the sphere. Was it the first time you were actually seeing it in the sphere last night? Or you've seen that? Yeah, I've seen it. It's the first time I've seen it in the sphere at 100% resolution.

So the last time I saw it, we were in the high 40s resolution. The first time I've seen it high res with full audio um the seats connected the whole deal last night was the first one and uh i'm telling you i'm telling you and there's people that have been in production world forever and done everything i mean shapiro mark shapiro you know that guy's produced the olympics uh nba finals he's done tons of shit he literally texted me today the thing sounded like a movie review exceptional outstanding groundbreaking dana i've never seen anything like this in my life so yeah people that know and people that have seen it all are already like fucking blown away by this thing so and how close

is it to what you envisioned possible leaving that you too show it's dead on i said you know you too was first they're the first people in the building you know so they had to kind of you know they didn't know i'm gonna use all of the capabilities of the sphere which nobody has done yet and how do you make sure that translates to television? So we have a guy named Glenn Weiss who is looked at as the hottest director in Hollywood when it comes to, you know, the Oscars, the Emmys, you know, all these different types of award shows. So there's two shows going on every Saturday. We have an in-house live show that we're producing, and there is a truck for that. Then you have another truck that is producing the television show that beams out to the rest of the world. There are two more trucks.

They will be filming both of those things together inside the sphere, trying to give the people at home that, I guess, experience. Will it work? We'll find out on Saturday night. And this guy, you know, Glenn Weiss, he's done everything. This guy's done it all. We called him and told him what we wanted to do. He said, you are out of your minds.

Amen. I love it. I got to be honest, seeing you this invested for the past, like, it feels like the past year in the production of this event and how how mind-blowing it could be it was surprising to me knowing your history with like big production walkouts or live music and stuff like that you're generally opposed to it do you think if the reception to the sphere is as great as you imagine it will be your stance will soften on that stuff there's nothing goofier than live music during a fight um even for a walkout you think yeah i think honestly i'm i'm obviously biased but the best we're the best that ever have done it when we

did shanae o'connor that's what i'm saying exactly it was amazing that there was nothing goofy about that right um but it's not easy to pull off and it's yeah it's a real pain in the ass all the other music walkout and all the other shit that's music related with fights is absolutely goofy um you know people don't show up to to to for that they show up for fights and i just try to keep everything um you know you don't have to go overdo it to make it fucking great you don't have to i just don it to make it fucking great. You don't have to, I just don't, I, I never liked them.

Yeah. I never, I never liked it. And the one time that we decided to do it, I thought we nailed it as best it could possibly be nailed. Um, and then we move on and we try other things. But, uh,

this one, when I went into the sphere and all the talk about how it couldn't be done. And, and, uh, and I saw, I saw the possibilities in there. And I had this, I guess, vision for it.

And it all comes to fruition tomorrow night. Did I see that there's going to be a hologram of you inside the sphere for people? There is. There is a hologram in the sphere. How does that work? So Howie Mandel, that's his company. Howie Mandel has a hologram company? Yeah, he does that.

I think it's Pronto, right? It's called Pronto. And it's called Pronto. And what you're going to see in there of me is just a glimpse of what they can do with Pronto. It's pretty fascinating. Can they start sending Dana White holograms to the cards you don't want to go to?

That's a good idea. If you want to take take off i want to go to all the cards it's the ones that i can't go to is the question um yeah it's pretty cool wait till you see this hologram yeah i want to interview the hologram i want to go like give me my phone do a dana white hologram interview the first ever first of its kind of this you'll love this what do we got here i'll show you um Mark fucking up your whole interview here no this is fine

this is you're building the anticipation good drum roll please I am gonna go No, this is fine. You're building the anticipation. Good. Drumroll, please. I am going to go. I'm going to go check out the Dana White hologram. Always. So what we just saw was Dana speaking fluent Spanish. So I filmed that, right?

You filmed that. And I talked about Noche UFC. And then their AI turns it into Spanish. And you see my mouth? Yeah. It's literally. I swear to God, I was going to do a video of myself talking in English and try to get AI to turn it into Spanish for this as well. I was holding out hope for the presser.

I thought you were going to come out on stage at the presser last night and be like, Buenos Noches, motherfuckers. I was holding out hope for that. The presser last night was awesome. I felt like Lazy Boy stole the show. Do you agree? I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, you don't need to speak a lick of Spanish to understand that charisma.

That's so funny. I just did a luncheon with all the Mexican media that's come up here from Mexico, and they asked me if I understood what he said yesterday during the press conference. I said, you don't have to understand Spanish to know what was said. It was all good shit. I understood when he said puta. I got that one. I was like, shit. I understood when he said puta. I got that one. I was like, oh, I know that one, yeah.

I know U2's been doing the concert movie at the Sphere. They filmed it and they're playing it as a movie now. Is the hope to do that with UFC as well? Yeah, if everything goes well tomorrow night, I would love to reformat that thing and have it be a live show at the Sphere. And prior to the show you saw at the Sphere, the U2 show, what do you think the most mind-blowing live event you ever went to was? Hmm. That's a good question.

I mean, again, it's super biased because obviously it would be something that I was very into and a fan of, but it would have to be, God, off the top of my head, it would have to be a concert that I've gone. I mean, Rage Against the Machine live is unbelievable. I think that when you talk about live bands and going and how good they sound and the energy inside the place for a rage concert is second to none but then actual shows that i've seen something that i've gone that i've been blown away with i don't know anything in vegas like do you did you go to vegas shows i assume you don't now obviously but like when you first came to vegas were you going to shows and stuff yeah i do shows and obviously mystere the first time you see it, is really good.

What is that? Cirque du Soleil? Yeah, exactly. It was like their first branded show. It was called Mystere. And it was very good, especially because nobody had ever seen anything like that before. There's a show, anybody who's in Vegas any weekend, at Caesars Palace, there's a show called Absinthe. I've heard about this.

It's very good. I think Absinthe is the best show in Las Vegas. Okay. I'll have to check it out next time I'm here. Definitely. Before you were a part of the UFC, what was the best fight you ever attended? Had to be a boxing fight, I would assume. Tyson.

Yeah, it was a Tyson fight. Yeah. I know you've got the big Tyson poster in there with the ticket in your office. Was it that fight, or were you at that fight? I think that the one, Lorenzo and I went to the Boda fight. Francois Boda, and I'm pretty sure the Boda fight was that, when he walked out to DMX for the first time, right? And we hadn't heard DMX before that.

It's like when DMX first started to blow up. And that's just when Tyson came out and the music and the whole, it was badass. Going back to this fear, I know you said he didn't get the tickets from you, but Oscar De La Hoya claims that he's going to be at this fear. I think he was just trying to stick it to Canelo. Yeah, he was trying to stick it to Canelo, but he's going. He really is going. He's going with Shake Turkey.

Shake Turkey invited him to go with him. Who shaked? Oh, oh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think an interaction between you and Oscar would look like? I probably won't even see him. He's going to be up in Shake's box, so.

Yeah. It would be fireworks, I'm sure. Do you think you guys would immediately just start arguing? We've seen each other. Three, four weeks ago, I was at a restaurant, and he was three tables over for me at dinner you guys just ignore each other exactly yeah fuck that guy i'm on your side i'm on your side with that you know i'm right um yeah absolutely and not to jump too much ahead i know all the focus is on ufc no j but i was just telling everyone here i formatted the most recent pup punk tour around ufc msg because i'm like i can't miss

that are we going to get a main event announcement soon for that one um i know the hope is that tomorrow night tomorrow night tomorrow night we're announcing the card oh shit it's right there right behind that black uh screen yeah we can't see anything yeah that's it the whole card the main card will be announced yes oh wow exciting i loved you know i'm the biggest john jones hater on the block but i loved you sticking it to the haters with the commercial i thought that was a big move i need you on the front lines for mcgregor like that as well as far as what i need you making commercials for just propaganda do you think he needs commercials though but i mean and that one i think he does people are always coming at him They're telling me he's never going to fight again.

I need you to make commercials saying he is going to fight again. And the Jon Jones piece is far from propaganda. It's true stuff. True stuff? They're facts. Those are all stats. Yeah, they're stats. But they just came out of nowhere.

Which are facts. Yeah. They didn't come out of nowhere. They're out there. They're available for stupid motherfuckers to read. You're just promoting Jon Jones. They're available for dumb fucks to go read to understand that numbers don't lie. You know what I mean?

It was a great move. That's why. Did you see how well I speak Spanish? Yeah, I did. You guys see how well I speak Spanish? Blew it. I can't wait until we pop everything into an AMI machine and they do the rankings, they do the pound for pound, and I don't have to sit around and explain to dumb fucking people all day who the best in the world is and why. It's still Jon Jones.

It's going to be a great day. Well, I don't know if it'll be Jon Jones then when AI comes around. the GOAT status right now and really, come on, look with me if you look at the pound for pound how that really should go is 3-2-1 John Jones is the pound for pound best fighter in the world Alex Pereira actually moved two different weight classes, went up

and is willing to fight at heavyweight saying I will fight at heavyweight so he's definitely number two and I love Islam, I'm not trying to shit on So he's definitely number two. And I love Islam. I'm not trying to shit on Islam. Islam is number three. You know what I love about Alex Pereira? He's willing to fight Tom Aspinall.

Let me talk to you about the media and the rankings. Let's look at the lightweight division. Look at number nine. Yeah, we got Max Holloway. Max Holloway is number nine. Now go from nine up and look at number nine. Yeah, we got Max Holloway. Max Holloway is number nine. Now go from nine up and look at number three. Someone he just knocked out at UFC 300, Justin Gaethje. He basically beat him twice because he was beating him on points,

then knocked him out. Two wins. I'm with you on that. So he's three. Holloway is number nine. Yeah. How the fuck does that make sense in any universe? And can I ask you something else?

Yeah. Where the fuck is Conor? Well, Conor's been out too long. So once you're out too long. Chandler's been out as long as him almost. Well, almost. Where's Chandler? You know what I'm doing?

Is Chandler still going to be his opponent? The other thing, no. If Conor beats Chandler, no. No. So. Whoa, you just slid that in, no? No. Because Chandler had the 2024 ultimatum?

Is that Chandler's choice? No, Chandler said, waiting i'll i'll i want to fight for real this is like huge breaking news yeah come out tomorrow unbelievable oh my god um yeah so we we could literally go through this fucking board all day but ai is coming and uh it'll be a happy day for me um are there plans to take the contender Series on the road? I know there was talk about that. So I sort of just threw that out one day, and the matchmakers loved the idea too. Production didn't love that idea very much.

Why not? Just because it's easier at the Apex? No, no, no. Because when you think about running this show and going out and doing it, it's expensive. You know what I mean? It's really expensive. And, you know, the amount of tickets that you would have to sell.

But I'm interested in it. Yeah. Our guy Lee, who runs our Spinning Backfish pages, had a great idea that I loved. College campuses for Dana White's Contender Series. College arenas. That'd be awesome. It would be awesome. College kids would be going insane for that.

You're not wrong. Yeah. Is there anything you love more than a good tito ortiz fail instagram post i feel like the my boy comment has taken on a life of its own and it's not that i that i'd love to see tito fail it's just that i've been telling people for many many many years how dumb tito is and and it's fascinating that nobody ever really picked up on it until I started saying it and now everybody notices it. You see any video on Instagram

where Tito Atiz tries to do a mic drop, hits himself in the head with it or something like that. You go right to the comments. You're the top one. My boy. Let me tell you what. When Tito was fighting here, we would do press conferences and somebody would ask him a question. Let me tell you what. So when Tito was fighting here, we would do press conferences. And somebody would ask him a question.

And all the stuff that you see are the absolute nonsense that would come out of his fucking mouth. And it would go on for 10 minutes. It wouldn't just be like he'd answer the question and, like, snap it up. It would go on forever. And then we'd almost be done with this thing. And somebody else would ask him a question. I could swear to God it was on purpose. Like these people wanted to fucking torture everybody. Then we'd have to listen to another fucking 15 minute, you know, commentary that made no sense whatsoever.

Yeah. Yeah. Tito is Tito is Tito. Tito is Tito. He's always going to be Tito. Yeah. And then finally, this is kind of a selfish question, but I've got a wedding to pay for now when is it my turn by the way tunnel of chaos that's right I would like I would like a shot in the tunnel of chaos yeah I'm jealous of all my co-workers

that have gotten to do it so do you know the story of that that night I I know their stories from that night which basically everyone walked in and said I would like a million dollars and they walked out with a million dollars not literally a million but so everybody that was so literally half of barstool was there that night and i and i'm sitting at home looking through my window like at all my friends playing out in the snow but you weren't in vegas were you no they didn't invite me well you would have had to be in vegas i know so literally portnoy was there yeah so portnoy um and he heard he heard the legend of you go in you say how much money you want and then you win it right so yes so that goes they had the back and forth i won a million

dollars and then um you know taylor right and taylor was telling him no i mean be realistic portnoy walked in and won a hundred thousand dollars i know in two minutes yeah took his hundred thousand and went then literally the next barstool employee would say, what do you want to win? And he would say $10,000. It got in line, yeah. And Portnoy would put up the $10,000 and I would win the $10,000, give the money back to Portnoy. Literally went through the whole line.

I don't know. What was it? 10, 12 people? Yeah. Something like that? Like every Barstool employee that was out there for the Super Bowl. Then we get to Will Compton, and it turns into a battle. But then we ended up getting it, getting his money.

He was stressing, though. There's the videos, and you could see people having to rub his shoulders and tell him it's going to be all right. Everybody won at a minimum $10,000 that night. You guys just bankrupt casinos. That's what you do. You go in there, and you take all their money, and you walk out. so you're here all weekend let's we'll get together and we'll do it i'm here till sunday morning how much is your wedding as much as we could afford we'll see which is why i

mean you got to have a budget for the wedding already how many people are you buying we don't already you don't even know who's coming no we talked about we don't know how many people are coming we're so far in the distance we're like we got to save up for this thing okay all right uh operation robbie fox wedding this weekend i love it you let me know ufc noche will be such a big part of your life forever now literally like my in-laws will know about us yeah they're kids their grandkids are going to know. All right, all right. Operation Robbie Fox's wedding.

Thank you, Dana. Deal.