My Mom's Basement - FRIDAY BONUS EPISODE 11 - DANA WHITE IS BACK AND IN-STUDIO!

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

We've got a SURPRISE Friday Bonus Episode drop for you a little early today! Dana White joins Robbie in-studio to discuss Jorge Masvidal vs Nate Diaz for the "Baddest Motherfucking In The Game" Championship at UFC 244, the rumors surrounding Conor McGregor and his return to the UFC, who will challenge Stipe Miocic for his UFC Heavyweight Championship next, and much, muuuuuch, more! We even incorporated some fan questions for this one, so you might've gotten yours answered.You 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. Here is a 26-minute sit-down with Dana White in studio where we go over everything you want to hear about in mixed martial arts right now. I mean, we talked about it all. We talked about Conor, we talked about UFC 244, and Jorge Masvidal vs. Nate Diaz, and the baddest motherfucker in the game championship. We talked about so much. Before I throw it over, though, as always, if you're not subscribed already, I would really appreciate it if you did and left us a rating and review, a good one preferably. It really does help out the show, and we appreciate it greatly. On Monday, we will be back with Adam Cole, an interview that Jared Karabas and I conducted in studio as well, and Stipe Miocic and John Volante.

They came in together. We chopped it up. That was also a great time. That will be out on Monday. I'm looking forward to you guys hearing it. But I'm looking forward to you guys hearing this Dana White interview even more. So here we go. All right.

Welcome back to the show. I am joined by a very special guest. My favorite guest to have on this podcast. The very first guest. And now he's back for the third time on the show. We actually did a Best of Dana White episode as well. We got all your clips together and put them together. You're here to talk about UFC 244.

You got the press conference today at Pier 17. And the main event, Jorge Masvidal versus Nate Diaz, is one of the best fights you guys have put together in a long time, I think. And I agree, and I'd love to take credit for it, but it's one of those fights that just happened, you know? In this sport, if you asked me a year ago if I would make that fight and I would make it a main event and I would main event it at MSG, I'd have told you you're nuts. With no title on the line, you know, no official title at least. We'll talk about that in a bit, trust me.

The BMF title. The BMF title. The baddest motherfucker on the line, you know, no official title at least. We'll talk about that in a bit. Trust me. The BMF title. The BMF title. The baddest motherfucker on the planet. Yeah. This is what this title is. You know, you said you're making an actual title as well? It's the baddest motherfucker in the game. Baddest motherfucker in the game.

I'm sorry. And you guys are making a physical title? The belt is being made right now. I will present the belt to the media the week of the fight here in New York. Amazing. And I assume you've seen the rocks tweet the rock wants to uh strap it around masvidal he is the winner so i'm going to tell you this i haven't had response from sponsors celebs and anything like this since

maymac that's insane and what does that say to you in terms of you know you said a year ago you would never imagine that this would be the fight main eventing at madison square garden especially with no title on the line but masvidal and diaz diaz a little more than masvidal because of the conor mcgregor stuff yeah masvidal has been around for 14 years and all of a sudden he's one of the biggest stars in the sport well he exploded the thing you know i was just telling the story with the matchmakers the other day i i saw masvidal the first time that not that i saw him the first time that i really noticed him i'm like this kid's got talent this kid's gonna be good and when was that do you remember he lost on fight to the troops you know way long ago yeah

he he would come out and look really good and then look bad then look good then look bad you know he had one of those type of careers and i don't know what happened to him where you know if it's as he gets older and you look at the opportunity the window closing and you know how much more time do i have left in the sport or what it is that went on in his head but the till fight yeah you know and obviously the ben askren fight you know blew this kid up and he won both fights spectacularly. And it put him in this position for this big fight. So you have the baddest motherfucker in the game championship on the line. You'll present it to the media. Have you seen the design of the title?

Is it awesome? I designed it. You designed it. So you were involved. I didn't sit down at a computer. Sat down with my design team and we came up with the with the BMF. Do you have any other, you know, maybe out-of-the-box theatrics planned for UFC 244 in terms of, you know, you've never done this before, the Rock wants involved, everything like this. You did some stuff for UFC 189 back in the day with entrances.

Is there anything else planned for the Garden? Not right now. Off the top of my head, I don't have anything yet, but we're not – we haven't got into that yet. You know, tickets go on sale today. This is just tickets on sale, and then we really won't start mapping out the show until we get closer to it. Okay, so a guy that you know I have to ask you about is Conor McGregor. He's been in the news a lot this week specifically. He fired off that tweet.

He said, Dublin, December 14th. Nobody really knew what it meant, and then all of a sudden rumors started coming out out of Irish tabloids that this was in reference to a boxing match with Luke Keeler, an Irish boxer that apparently called McGregor and they got into some beef. Is there any truth to that? No. Have you heard that? No. You hadn't even heard that rumor? That's total bullshit.

So when Conor tweets December 14th. So what Conor means, you know what December 14th is, right? You guys have UFC in Vegas. It's the Las Vegas show. Correct. He wants it in Dublin. So could that happen? Could you move that show?

No, that show can't move. Why not? Because it can't. I can't take a show out of Vegas that's already booked and move it to Dublin. Can't do it. All right. Fair. Vegas has already stepped for that fight.

We owe Vegas a fight. Because you moved the Jones fight to California. Yeah, and we have so many a year that we do in Vegas. And we don't have our New Year's show anymore. So that's going to be our last big show, a big show for Vegas. So you're planning on still adding to that card. We already have a title fight on that card with Amanda Nunez defending her title. But you're looking to add more to that, maybe another title fight?

Like three title fights on that card. Wow. And is there a possibility we see Conor on that card? That card is going to be ridiculous. Is there a possibility we see Conor? No. No possibility for December 14th? I should never say never.

Did you hear from Conor after the Gaethje fight, I assume? Is that the fight Conor wants justin gaethje um no but i asked connor uh i hit connor up after and asked him what he wants okay and uh he hit me back with december 14th in dublin dublin and you hit him back with not gonna happen yeah okay got Yeah, pretty much. Okay, got it. We can move on from Connor. I appreciate you taking the time and answering those questions, especially about the Luke Keeler stuff. I really didn't know where that was coming from. I'm glad that that is not the case. I've never even... Who is Luke Keeler?

So the rumor that came out of The Sun, a bunch of tabloids in Ireland were reporting that after the video came out of McGregor assaulting that man in the bar, Luke Keeler, a boxer, trashed him publicly. McGregor called him, and Luke Keeler supposedly got him to agree to a fight on the phone that would take place in Dublin on December 14th. That's what's being reported all over the Irish tabloids right now. That is such bullshit. Connor, no way. Well, I'm glad that we got it straight from the source.

It's not happening. What a good job that guy did of getting his out there yeah really right um in connor's division we got habib as the champion just put on an unbelievable for unbelievable performance in abu dhabi against dustin pourier uh the fans want to see tony ferguson as the you know the fight for habib i assume you want to see that fight you've tried to book it so many times is that next that yeah that's that that is the fight that we want to do next we'll see how this thing plays out you know Tony's been in position for a couple of opportunities but couldn't take him at that time so if everything works out then yeah did you happen to catch the uh what Jeremy Stevens said about training with Tony Ferguson no so they trained

together and this week Jeremy Stevens came out and started talking about you know Tony has all these weird training methods right and we finally got someone on the inside talking about it. And Stevens said they would train for seven hours straight going balls to the wall. The most insane championship training he's ever seen, he said. And then they would stop and watch Rocky IV. And then they would just do it again. He's obsessed with watching Rocky IV. I think it's because he's trying to, like, build it up, being like, I'm about to face a Russian.

I don't know, though. But that's how Tony Ferguson is trained for that fight. No, that sounds very Tony Ferguson to me. Yes. That's awesome. And the heavyweight division is – I prefer Rocky III, though. Oh, really?

Is that your favorite Rocky? I'm a Rocky III guy, yeah. You go Rocky III over Rocky I? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Big Clubber Lang guy. Clubber Lang.

Thunderlips, too? Oh, yeah. The whole movie. The whole movie is great. I love it. In the heavyweight division, we just also had Stipe Miocic. He's in the office. And I was asking him about who he would like to fight next, what he would want next.

Stipe gave me very steep answers. I don't care whoever they put in front of me. Do you have any plans for the heavyweight division? Obviously, have you heard from Cormier? Do you expect Cormier to retire? Do you expect Cormier to return? Yeah, Stipe is recovering from that fight. He's got some bumps and bangs from that fight.

So we're waiting for him to heal, and yeah, we're going to do the trilogy. Okay, awesome. Do you have any time frame in mind for that, or you're just waiting for them to heal? It's going to depend on Stipe's physical... But in your mind, DC versus Miocic is next? Yes. I love that. I love that fight.

Both fights I thought were incredible. So good. Even the second one. This will go down as, I think, one of the better heavyweight trilogies in MMA, if not the greatest. The best. Yeah. Tell me one that's better than that. Yeah, I couldn't.

Another division. The last division that I'm actually going to have to ask you about is the flyweight division. I ask you about it every time I interview you. What's going on with Triple C right now? Have you heard from him? I know he had some injuries to his arm and he was going to rehab, but it looks like he been like traveling the world and not rehabbing and he's saying he wants to fight in march now instead of december i know that you wanted to see joe benavidez versus henry cejudo i would love to see that fight as well so that fight will happen that will happen when he's healthy would you say

that is next for henry yeah definitely not al jamaean unless he walks away from the belt yeah yeah okay i loved i love to hear that um and. And then let's move on to some business stuff. We talked about Zuffa Boxing last time. You said we'll hear more about it in the fall. We're approaching the fall. Are you ready to unload maybe an announcement date or anything else? Yeah, I don't have the date for the announcement yet, but it'll be in October. We'll hold a press conference, and we'll get it rolling.

So I assume you've been paying attention to boxing a lot more since you started going into boxing. What are the main things from the sport that you feel that you'll be able to improve upon? I've talked about boxing more in the last three months than I have in the last 20 years. You know, I'm not saying that I'm the guy that's,

you know, I'm, I'm smarter than all these other guys. I'm going to come out and I'm gonna fix it. But what I am saying is that i know that the system is broken and it needs to be fixed and i think that i have a lot of good ideas on how to fix it um and you know every everybody's telling me yeah he thinks he can do this and he thinks he can do that he can't do this and he can't do that but people have been telling me that for 20 years yeah you know um at some point

wendy stopped out in me and and what i'm able to do so um once i get my guy in place in october i'm gonna sit down and he and i are gonna you know probably have a week or two of just straight planning, figuring out how we do this. I have a lot of respect for this guy. This is why I brought this guy in. And I truly believe that when you put me, this guy that I'm putting in place, and Ari all on the same team, there's no way we don't do this. So you've mentioned this mystery figure a ton in the recent weeks and stuff. Are we to believe that he will be taking care of more of the day-to-day operations of Zuffa Boxing than you will?

You'll still be 100% committed to the UFC. Exactly. Okay. Here's a weird question. I don't know if you've ever gotten this before, but I'm interested in how thefc handles their social media highlights and stuff like that and i feel like it's changed a little bit since you guys went to espn i see more finishes at least on twitter on facebook um do you ever pay attention to the analytics of like the nba oh yeah for example as a free-for-all you know anyone could post nba clips and they see the most growth by far out of any sporting

promotion so do you look at that and do you ever think, why don't we let people post more clips instead of taking them down? What is your thought process? It depends on what your deal is. It depends on what your deal is with a network. And obviously, you know, we're in business with the leader in sports. So, you know, they have rights to a lot of this stuff. But ESPN has been incredibly um flexible and great partners and and uh working on lots of different stuff you know because we're testing the waters you know with a lot of different things first of all the whole subscription thing is is is new yep um social media is still growing and getting bigger and and and pretty much new too so you know we're trying a lot of things together and figuring out how we can work together and

not only help build their platforms and what they're working on but continue to build our brand and and and make help sport grow so from your point of view would you like if if let's say the espn the whole deal if nobody's telling you what to do but here's the difference i'm going to tell you the difference about the nba and us okay well you're you guys are on pay-per-view i know that well not even not even that there's one you can use that the other difference between us and the nba is nobody sits down and watches a basketball game again after it's over. It's not like you keep replaying that like we do our fights. So there's a ton of value in our library and in our fights.

And I would say that our library is more valuable than the NBA's. True. I hadn't even considered that. Yeah. So for us to just let anybody take the clips, ESPN owns those rights. And they replay those fights on TV and they pull big numbers. So we can't just let people run around. I feel you there. I just wanted to see from your perspective what – I'd never heard anyone from the UFC necessarily talk about this sharing and rights issues.

And then here's the last thing I want to talk to you about business-wise. You teased that you would like to co-own an NFL team one day. Do you have any timeframe as to when you want to do that or is that just a kind of dream that you're like someday down the line i'd like to do that it's definitely going to happen but that's like there are wheels in motion well we we have spun the wheels on some things and and uh you know uh it didn't work out so if it didn't work out it wasn't meant to be timing wasn't right the thing that's always happened for me and the Fertitta brothers is timing has always been perfect on everything that we've ever done together um and I won't be owning any NFL teams without the Fertittas so um that's their passion it's what they love to do and I love you know I love rolling with them so

when they're when the right deal comes and it happens, we'll get it done. All right. I can't wait to see it. I've said forever that if you were, you know, in front of an NFL team and if you were giving your regular Dana White press conferences, it would spice that league up. It would be something. Let's loosen up now. Well, we talked enough about Dana White, the businessman. Let's talk about Dana White, the person. I got a few questions for you that i don't know about you personally i'm

like i'd like to figure it out all right you got a night off nothing to do what do you what are you deciding what do you want to do well the only thing i care about doing is hanging out with my kids so if i'm not working or whatever i'm hanging out with my kids but my kids are now getting to the age where they don't want to hang out with me as much as they used to. They're 17 and 18, and my little girl is 13. So when they're out doing their thing, I probably go play cards. You play blackjack? Yeah, I'm a fucking big, generous, fucking card player. Blackjack's your number one game, right?

I mean, we talked about it in the tour. You're shutting down casinos. They're telling you, don't come back. We don't want you. Your sons are both boxing or just one? No, just the younger one, Aiden. Aiden boxes, and Dana plays football. I actually fly home, uh, tonight after the press conference.

And then tomorrow I fly to California for his game. That's awesome. So I assume that's also a big thing that, you know, you're always with your sons in their sports, you know, in boxing and football, if you can be. Awesome. Yeah. I love it. Um, what is your, what's your...

My daughter plays volleyball, which I go to every game too. There you go. Yeah. And they're really good volleyball, which I go to every game too. Oh, there you go. Yeah, and they're really good, so it's fun to watch them play volleyball. They're at that age now where volleys go on for like two and a half, three-minute volleys. It's actually really fun. I enjoy it. That was like my favorite thing to do in high school is go to wrestling meets and go to volleyball games. It was awesome.

And my daughter is good, so it's fun to watch. Hell yeah. Yeah. Favorite meal, if you're just picking a meal who you know i i would say my favorite meal is uh it's italian food i like italian and and uh i like going chicken parm i like raviolis and i like it like any kind of pasta all right go-to drink hmm my go-to drink you like a beer drinker are you uh yeah i'm a beer guy listen i used to be the hard liquor i'm too fucking old for hard liquor now man that that shit kicks my ass for like three days i used to drink vodka and now i can't even do it anymore now now i gotta drink

like the the sissy low carb fucking you know zero carb beer i am like the michelob ultra when connor's passing you shots of proper 12 on stage you take it where you just like oh that just ruined my stomach i'm done for the day so i don't like whiskey i don't like whiskey and i'm not just saying this everybody thinks i you know kiss connor's ass so much uh people say that about me too it's crazy but how do you not love connor mcgregor you know what i mean you know he's made a few mistakes here in the last in the last year but uh the kid's awesome and uh but his proper 12 is good yeah it's good it tastes good yeah you know what i mean um and and i'm not a whiskey guy but i like his whiskey the day he gave it to me i liked

it um so jack daniels you know you know fireball yes So Jack Daniels makes a form of Fireball. And I know a lot of kids, younger kids, like to drink Fireball. Get the Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels Fire or Jack Daniels Red. Shit's so good. So I will literally get – Dan White signed off on it. I'll take a glass of that and a beer.

That's crazy to me. I'll drink the beer and I'll sip on the Jack Daniels Fire. That's really crazy to me because I'm a guy that really can't drink. I'm a pussy. My stomach's real bad. I could really only do like a ginger ale vodka. If I had a Jack Daniels fireball shot, I think I would throw up on the spot. It's so good.

I'd want to sip. That's crazy. All right. So we got some fan questions. Fans sent in some questions. We could do lightning round for these. Scott Nolan wants to know when you're going to adopt me. Adopt you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You looking to be adopted?'re going to adopt me adopt you yeah yeah you're looking to be adopted i mean i wouldn't be opposed if you were looking if listen i won't put you on the spot now if you would like to adopt me i would be open to the idea all right sounds good um midnight dreary says do you ever regret letting matt riddle go i thought that one was interesting i hadn't heard you know you comment on matt riddle in a while. He's doing well for himself in the WWE now. I have no, you know, I know I've heard interviews with Matt Riddle and, you know, he's very fired up about being let go and everything. But at that place and time where we were, it was the right move. But I'm happy for him.

I'm happy that he's been successful and he's doing well you know i don't wish the kid any ill will i don't hate matt riddle or dislike matt riddle in any way um i know he feels the opposite as he should i'm you know um but i i yeah i don't wish him any ill will or anything like that but no i don't regret the decision that i made at that time okay um kevin curry says do you have an all-time favorite fight do you have one personally it could be boxing too i know you're a long so i used to i used to have a favorite fight but there's been so many i mean we've been on a run of just ridiculous fights since fox you know um it's so hard to pick a favorite fight

like a couple you could mention even from the past, from the early days maybe? Yeah, the early – I've always said it. You know, the Matt Hughes-Frank Trigg two fight because going into that fight when we told Hughes, you know, we're going to do this fight again. You know, he hates Trigg, right? Hates Trigg with a passion. And going into that fight, he's like this is such a – but this is the type of guy that Matt Hughes was. This is such a lose-lose for me. I'm never going to beat him more impressively than I did the first time.

And I hate the guy. So, you know, but I'll do it. Let's do it. And what happens? He actually beats him more impressively than he did the first time. So that was one of my favorite fights. Personally, I go Robbie Lawler versus Rory McDonald, too, from UFC 189. That stare down at the end of round four where Robbie's spraying the blood out of his face.

It's crazy. Crazy. Yeah. There's been so many fucking crazy fights. I mean, Henderson and Shogun and I'm trying to think of some of the recent ones. I mean, Gastelum versus Adesanya. Oh, my God. We're talking about a guy that's on this card.

Gastelum is returning against Darren Till. Yep. That fight was insane. That's, right now, I think, the fight of the year. I agree. Colin Mullaney wants to know, when can we expect to see Sean O'Malley? Yeah, this kid's had some issues. Seems like a string of bad luck with him.

Serious bad luck. So, from what I'm hearing, any time now now he should be on one of these cards before the end of the year okay awesome i love to see that he's one of my favorite prospects in the entire ufc um what's the most pissed off you've ever been as the president of the ufc you get pink a lot when you get pissed off yeah steam starts firing out of those ears there's been a lot of incidents jones you know getting that card canceled way back in the day i mean he's gotten a ton of cards canceled if we're being honest here. Connor with the dolly.

There's Habib jumping over the cage. He really shouldn't have done that. Even Habib, did he tell you he was going to jump over the cage to hug you? Oh, hell no. I thought he did because the way you were telling him, that guy's got to stay in the cage. I should really watch my mouth. I shouldn't say anything about Habib, but he should stay in a cage after the place. Well, we're lucky we weren't in Vegas for that one.

So from here on out, we never talked about him jumping out of the cage because I never thought he would do it again after the – Can you tell him no more? And that's because Robbie Fox told me to tell you no more. It was okay in Abu Dhabi, but he can't do it. But people start freaking out and people start – there was a little bit of panic sitting around.

You know, I'm glad he jumped out on my side because I calmed everybody down, said, stop, let this thing play out. And, you know, security was going crazy. And yeah, I need I need to talk to him about staying in the cage. But the most pissed off you've ever been. God, that's that's a tough one. I would have to say that the most pissed off I've been – Linnea, how long have you been with the company now?

Six years. Six years? I mean, you've never seen me crazy pissed off, right? Really? Yeah. Everybody thinks that at work I'm some fucking lunatic and I'm running around slapping people around. I don't assume that, but I assume when Jones is out doing Jones things, you're probably livid. It was early days. I would say – I would have to say that nobody – because you have to look at the time and the place that we're in.

We're burning money. You don't know if this thing is going to keep going. And I believe in this thing, that this thing can work. And I would have to say that nobody has pissed me off more than Tito Ortiz and the shit that he pulled while he was here. And we actually have a question about him. It's going to be my final question for you. Did you really think, and I know your answer to this. This is a fan question.

Did you really think that you would beat Tito Ortiz in a boxing match? I knew it and so did he. That's why it didn't happen. This is maybe my favorite crazy tale in MMA history that you and Tito almost had a boxing match. What? How did that but that so tito ortiz was doing a new deal with us and tito and i hated each other so bad that lorenzo handled that deal okay so he and lorenzo did this deal and lorenzo so you know titito never had great hands. Yeah. Okay? So Tito had been working on his boxing, and I think that he was working with, what's his name, the Mexican kid that fought De La Hoya and was big at that time with De La Hoya and him.

Oh, God damn it. I'm not as big a boxing guy, so I'm losing you here. Fernando Vargas. Okay. So Tito was training with Fernando Vargas. So Tito started to feel like his hands were getting in a good place. And we hated each other. So he told Lorenzo, the last thing that I want in this deal is I want three-round boxing match with Dana. Three three-minute rounds boxing.

Lorenzo called me and said, this is what I said. Yes. Tell him him sign the deal there was no hesitation on your end like this is a fucking ufc fighter and i'm signing up to fight him right now this wasn't going to be the first time that tito and i had boxed oh you had boxed tito before many times i didn't know that oh yeah i didn't know that. Listen. Why were you boxing Tito Ortiz? For whatever reason, Tito pulled that out of his ass for that to happen as it started to get closer. And I was training. And, you know, I was at the time I was sparring with heavyweight pro boxers that were ranked in the top ten. I was sparring with top 10 ranked heavyweights

to get ready for that fight, right? I was in fucking ridiculous shape. I was ready, and I was going to whoop his ass in front of everybody. Now, let me make this very clear. If it was an MMA match, Tito would murder me. Like, it would be fucking...

Definitely. It would be the most horrific beating you've ever fucking seen in your life he would double leg me smash me against the fence be like a habib smash and put his fucking out no it'd be worse than that tito would literally put his fucking elbows through my skull okay just so we're clear here yeah in a boxing match i was gonna fuck him up and make him look stupid. And he knows that. And that's why that fight didn't happen. Talk that shit, champ. I love it. I would love to see

that boxing match happen today. I want that to happen right the fuck now. I'm too fucking old for that now. I think Tito's too old for it, too. I think it'd be like grudge match. You know, it's Stallone and De Niro. They're like old men and they're fighting in the ring. It would be incredible. Dana, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to the press conference tonight. I'm looking forward

to Madison Square Garden in November. If there's one thing that we've learned over the last several years, there's nothing fun about old men fighting each other. Okay. You know what? Fact. Yeah. Oscar De La Hoya, your friend proved that.