TRIGGERnometry - Dana White: UFC 322, Success and Why You Should NEVER Listen To Your Critics

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

Dana White is the UFC President, known for building MMA into a global powerhouse. | Cape: America's privacy-first mobile carrier. Click https://cape.co/trigger - Promo Code: TRIGGER33 for 33% off. | Venice AI: Enjoy private, uncensored AI https://venice.ai/triggernometry - use code TRIGGERNOMETRY to get 20% off a pro plan. Triggernometry is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: - Monarch, the all-in-one financial tool. Get 50% Off with CODE: TRIGGER at https://www.monarchmoney.com - Wild Alaskan Company: premium, wild-caught seafood. Go to https://wildalaskan.com/TRIG for $35 off your first box Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 - Introduction 08:56 - What Kept You Going In The Early Days Of The UFC? 16:47 - To Be An Elite Fighter You Are Incredibly Special 24:12 - The Fight Business Is Not Easy 32:54 - Women In The UFC 34:19 - Being A Friend To Donald Trump 40:03 - "Donald Trump Is The Most Resilient Human Being I've Ever Met In My Life" 42:15 - You've Been Accused Of Giving Certain Fights "Dana White Privilege" 46:25 - Why Does The UK Produce So Many Great Fighters? 51:36 - Thomas Aspinall's Injury And What Can Be Done To Prevent Further Instances Of This Happening 54:13 - What's The One Thing We're Not Talking About That We Really Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fighting is this first sport ever. Fighting is just in our DNA. There's going to be three or four holy shit moments. And what's incredible is, 13,000 people at Madison Square Garden will jump out of their seats at the same time and go, holy shit. I've seen guys walk in with the belt,

entourage, the whole da-da-da-da-da-da. Move that night and walk out by themselves. Eddie Hearn, there's been a bit of a war of words between you guys. It's been kind of one way. I don't know if I should tell this story. You should. Relax, relax.

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Dana White, welcome to jac. Figuametry, man. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure to have you on. Listen, we were talking before we started about the early days, actually not just in UFC, but in your life. And I just wonder, given where you started and what you went through, do you pinch yourself every day now, like selling out giant arenas, MSG, UFC 32 now? Yeah, people, so this weekend is sold out. Let me do a $13 million gate. After this weekend, we will be eight of the top 10 all time. Madison Square Garden Gates. In two years, we'll be 10

of the top 10 all-time MSG Gates. And we weren't allowed in New York a few years ago. You know, there was a corrupt politician here that was keeping us out of New York because of the Las Vegas Culinary Union, because of my

friends, my first partners are Fertita brothers and the gaming business. And they're non-union. So, you know, I love the fact that, you know, we sell out and we're going to be 10 of the top 10 all time in New York. Do I pinch myself? I do not because my mindset is always like what's next.

How do we keep going to the next level? So I have this, I'm never really there. Like we're not there yet. Every day when I get up, we're still trying to get there. I know what you mean. But I also think like I've heard you talk about, I remember you told the story of like there was this one guy that you wanted to do some kind of deal with

and you'd show up and you wouldn't give you the time at day and you'd say, can I please? And the end of that story was he now works at the UFC. That's got to feel good, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's been a lot of that. So think about this. So we're based in Vegas, right?

So I need production people. I need good salespeople and all the sales and production people are either in New York or they're in L.A. Nobody wanted to move to Vegas. And at that time, you know, Vegas It's a much smaller city then. There were no live sports there except for us in boxing.

So, yeah, it was hard to get those kind of guys. Now we have all those. We have the best of the best. I get a sense from you, though. Proving people wrong is kind of a fun thing for you, right? I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I don't know how to explain it, but yeah, I do.

I love proving everybody wrong. Yeah. You know, Dana, there's a lot of especially young men who watch your interviews because they see you as an inspiration and as a role model. A guy who's gone from a regular blue-collar background to have the kind of business success that you've had. What would you say to those young men, maybe a 22-year-old guy who's sitting in his bedroom,

watching this interview on his laptop, doesn't see a lot of a way out or much hope in his life? Well, I can tell you this. When I grew up, it was very hard to disrupt and very hard to break into, you know, if there was a massive business that had been around for a long time,

very hard to go head to head and try to compete with them. Now, it's a while West. The world is wide open and for the taking for anybody. All these disrupting businesses that have come in. I mean, when I was, I'm 56. If you'd have told me that there's, you know, taxi cabs, that business was going to be in trouble in a few years. You know, these things that we, you know, the yellow pages would go away.

You know, all the things that have that have happened in the last 25 years. I'll give you an example. When we were trying to get TV deals, a guy came into my office and he's like, I want to show you this thing called streaming. It's going to be huge. And it's going to take over, you know, television and all this stuff. So he plays it for me on a computer and it goes, buffering, buffering, buffering, plays three seconds. Buffering, blah.

I'm like, oh, yeah, this is going to be really fucking big. Yeah. And so blow TV out of the water. But how fast technology has come in such a short amount of time. And for me and my business, technology has been incredible for us, you know. And I'm always jumping on the newest technology. So the answer to your question is, if there's anything that you love and you want bad enough and you figure out that's what you want to do and you get up every day and you just work toward it.

I mean, we're not sitting at this table in New York City right now because that's not what you two did. You two woke up one day and said, I think we should do this. And here you are. You've been in America for three weeks and you've done 33 interviews. You know, that doesn't happen overnight. You have to have vision and you have to have a plan. You have to get up every day and work toward that plan and anybody can do it. Anybody can do it.

The bigger problem with it is people say they want this stuff. and being here in America for three weeks, for four weeks, whatever you've been, and doing 33 interviews is a grind. It's a grind and you're away from your families. You have children. It's easier said than done, you know. Putting in the work to achieve what you think you want to achieve

isn't as fun as a lot of people think it is. I think it's a lot of fun. I love it. I was built for this. This is what I love to do. And if you out there are listening and you think that's you, go for it. Nothing's holding you back. Nothing's stopping you.

And there's never been a better time to do. So back on the day, we were talking about movies yesterday or TV shows, how hard it was to land a TV show, you know, 35 years ago. It's almost impossible. And 25 years ago, and we started the UFC and, we've got the ultimate fighter on, we had to pay our way on for $10 million. Anybody right now can go jump on YouTube and start their own channel. And the odds of it being successful are pretty good.

And it's interesting that you say that. But what keeps you going through those long, dark nights of the soul, where you think to yourself, am I going to make it, am I going to not? You're looking at your bank account, it's hemorrhaging money. The business isn't as going as well as you hoped at that particular point. What kept you going? Well, do you really believe in what you're doing? Do you really believe? I believed, to my core, that the UFC could be massive, not just in the United States, but all over the world. I truly believed in it. Why? How come? Because fighting works everywhere, and I believe that this was the most exciting style of fighting. I was a big boxing guy, but once I got into the UFC, I believed that this was way more exciting than boxing.

boxing was. And I love the stories of the athletes. You know, you had these guys who graduate. Chuck Liddell was, you know, my first big star. And he looked like an axe murderer. But he graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in accounting. You know, it's a great story. Rich Franklin, who was one of our world champions, was a school teacher. You know, we had these kind of stories where as boxing had, well, I came from the main streets of such and such, and if it wasn't for boxing, I'd be dead or in jail. It was literally every guy's story. And I thought that people could relate more

to the UFC fighters than they could to boxing. I felt like we would tell the stories better than boxing did. And I just, I believe this was going to. If you watch early interviews of me, I say this is going to be bigger than boxing, and it's going to be a global sport. And everybody thought I was nuts. Yeah.

Chuck Liddell follows us on Instagram, so he must be a smart guy. A definitely a smart guy. But, sorry, if we just go back to my point before I interrupted you. What kept you going, the long, dark nights of the soul? I just, I believed. I mean, that's it. I believed that this thing was going to work, and we were going to keep grinding until we ran out of money and it was over.

Yeah, and that is... And you came close. Yeah, we came real close. Yeah, Lorenzo called me and said, I can't keep doing this. I need you to go out and find out what you can get for this thing. I called them back at the end of the day, and I said, $7, $8 million. And we were in the whole $30-something. Wow.

And he said, okay, we hung up the phone of that night. I was like, it's probably over. And he called me the next morning and literally said, fuck it. Let's keep going. And Lorenzo's big thing, and it's so true. It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do for you. You know what I mean? When you end a real shitty day, which I'm assuming he had that day,

and you know, you go home and you go to bed, you wake up the next day, and it's a new day. That's just like what I tell young people. I think part of the problem with people, you're going to have the group of people that just don't want to work on. You got the group of people that are like, I want to work Monday through Friday. Nine to five, I want weekends and holidays off, right?

Those people are always going to exist. I'm not going to say, what do you want out of your life? Who are you and what do you want out of your life? For some people, that's their life. And then you have people that are willing to work hard, they're willing to dig in and do whatever it takes, but they're scared to make that move. So when you have, whatever your job is, you have a job,

there's just this sort of feeling of security that people have when they have a job. And walking out the door of that job and trying to go out and not only do you have to work for yourself and make a living, when you have other people that rely on you every day, that you're getting the shit done that also is going to take care of them and their families. So taking on that kind of responsibility freaks a lot of people out. And Dan, you talk about making the UFC a global sport, and it has become a global sport.

Absolutely. One of the things I wonder about is on our show, we've talked a lot about the way culture moves and politics moves. And we've seen over the last 10 years in particular something you called the Pucification of America. I think of the world, at least the Western world, right. I agree. But I wonder if there's a connection between the pacification of the world and the fact that this brutal violence. I mean, I'll be honest with when I first started watching the UFC, I was kind of watching it like this. Because it's brutal.

But it's now really become what it's become. And I wonder if those two things are somehow connected. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I think that if you look into the history of fighting, right, from the Colosseum and then to boxing, when you look at boxing in the early 1900s and the U.S., I mean, there's fights that like hundreds of thousands of people showed up to watch back then.

And this was always my philosophy. I believed it then. I believe it now. fighting is this first sport ever on planet earth two men were around and somebody punched somebody and it was on and as human beings even though you watched it like this we are fighting is just in our DNA we get it and we like it a fight broke out out in the hallway right now we'd all run over there and holy shit there's a fight out here

and it just brings a sort of energy to the room. You know what I mean? And us as humans, that is unexplainable. And it doesn't matter what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak, we all get fighting and we like it. And if somebody is looked at as the baddest dude in the world,

and they look like you, talk like you, and come from where you come from, you rally around them. And it's like, it's like, even after all the, years, right? If Mike Tyson walked in this room right now, and I've known him for years and he's a good friend of mine, we'd all go, holy shit, that's Mike Tyson. You know what I mean? And no basketball

players or, you know, no matter how great they are, make people feel that way. It's a, it's a weird thing. And I've always believed in that. And I've always believed that, you know, this thing would work everywhere with every group of people. I guess what I'm getting at is, do you think there's something in this moment that's helped you explore? Because, you know, you had these people running around saying words of violence, and then you've got Francis and Garno knocking someone's head off. Like, I think that kind of suppressed urge for something that roar is maybe part of what's happened. I don't know if you think that or not.

I don't know. It's pretty deep. Sorry. I don't know if, I think that I tell people all the time, I'll, tell you, you have a three-year-old son, right? The greatest thing you can do is his father is teach him how to fight. You know, get him into jiu-jitsu, get him into Muay Thai, and teach him how to fight. It gives these kids a level of confidence, and not just to handle themselves physically, but just to know that you can, you know, changes the mindset of girls and boys. My daughter trained, too when she was little at my daughter train um i don't know the answer to your question but um

fighting definitely uh is just who we are as a species i guess i would say how did you get into fighting i uh so my uncles all used to uh watch the big fights on abc over here and and uh you know like i was explained that buzz and that energy that's in the room they watched all sports They were big Red Sox fans who watch the Celtics, Patriots, but there was never that energy, that feeling there was when there was a big fight on TV. And I just became addicted to it, I guess.

I don't know. I fell in love with boxing through, you know, them watching the big fights. And then I became a fight fan. That makes sense because that's how I feel about the UFC. You often talk about you all in the holy shit moment business. And that is really the only time when I find watching some other, like literally.

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same time and go, holy shit, and everybody goes crazy and you're looking at each other and you're high-fiving. And then there will be millions of people around the world doing it at the same exact time. And there's just, there's no other sport that really, you know, there's home runs and there's the soccer goal or the fucking, but it's not the same as a fighting holy shit moment. Yeah. It's just not. One of my friends, she was going to me, oh, Francis, why is it you like boxing? And I went, come and sit down. And then I played. all of Tyson's knockouts from the early part of his career. And it was like one in the morning and she watched it right the way through.

When you just see those hits go in, it's magnetic. It's true. And even if it's not a Tyson type highlight, when we who are normal people, first of all, to be an elite fighter, you are incredibly special. You are just built in every way, shape, and form differently than the rest of the world. And when we, as normal people, see these incredible human beings perform in their arena, whether it's, you know, the octagon or a ring or whatever it is, it's hard not to admire it

and go, wow. And again, like I told you earlier, they look like you talk like you and come from where you come from. You know, I mean, you could take anybody that, Manny Pachia out. You know what I mean? Filipinos were all going crazy over Manny Pachia. when he was on top of the world. Connor McGregor, who's Irish, everybody thinks they're fucking Irish. So everybody was going crazy all over the world.

And, you know, it's just, it's a very unique special thing. And what makes a great fighter? Because there must be, there must be a little bit of a chemistry to it. When you watch someone, you're like, that guy's got it. They've all got different attributes that make them unique. Obviously, you have to be talented. You have to be a great athlete. And all the things that you have to be to play any sport,

the difference between a fighter is you're mentally wired, completely different than the rest of the world. Like if you laid them on a platform and measured them against all the other athletes in the world, they're an athlete, right? But mentally, they're completely different. And, you know, there are certain athletes in other sports that I think, you know,

have that that type of like the goats the ones that you look at Michael Jordan is a killer right okay Tom Brady is a killer you know and and like messy and some of these other guys that are huge rinaldo um but but the fighters what happened to when I was younger and I used to fight and I believe that I wanted to you know I remember one day we were in the gym and there was this guy that came in the gym and he was a local, like, he was a celebrity locally, right? Not on the national world stage, but in our hometown he was. And he came in one day, and he was like, I hadn't seen him in a while. And he was super punchy, like, and fucked up.

And I was like, oh, Jesus Christ, what if I end up like that guy? Fighters don't think like that. Okay? Real fighters don't think like that. Nope. they'll lose two, three in a row. You know, this just knockouts, whatever it is, and they just keep going.

They keep going. And most of them will tell you, even we, you know, yesterday, Benile Dereux, who has had, first of all, if you break into the top 10 in the UFC, it's unbelievable. To get to the UFC is hard enough. Break into the top 10, top five is almost impossible to break into the top five.

And some of these guys that get in there and stay there, for a long time. And Benile Darius is one of those guys. And they asked them yesterday, you know, what, what did it? He was like, what do you mean? What am I doing or what am I? I'm here to become a world champion. I want to win a world time. And that is your mindset. And, you know, it's, and it's no different than what we were talking about earlier. If you're going to get into the business world or you're going to go out there and you're going to work for yourself, that should be your mindset. I'm going to want a world.

title. 100% man. We're going to be the best. We're going to be the biggest. This is our goal. We're going to work every day to get here. And anybody can do it. Well, you don't...

I'm sure you two have stories of why you shouldn't be sitting here right now. And I have a million of those stories and anybody who's ever made it. And I think what happens to some of these kids, too, is they feel like... And it's not that they're not confident in themselves, but it's like, oh, let's say you wake up in you're 30, right? Oh, man, I'm a, I used to be a bellman at the Boston Harbor Hotel. So when people ask you what you do for a living, I'm a bellman, right? How the fuck is a bellman going to go from that to being the CEO? Well, everybody is something at one point in the life. Nobody just gets out of fucking high school and becomes the CEO of,

you know, a fucking Microsoft, right? You all started somewhere, right? These were just jobs. that you survive to pay your bills to get you to wherever it is that you want to go. Most people have to shake that stigma of they feel like, who am I to, I didn't go to college, I didn't do this, I didn't grow up in a wealthy family, I don't know anything, you know, all the shit that you can think are negative things in your life. They're not. They've all built you in different ways to go wherever it is. is you want to go and everybody can do it.

I don't know if I'm explaining that. You're making a... Well, actually, I think people who understand where you're coming from will really resonate with what you're saying because, like you say with us, we started this in a room above a comedy club with no audience, no followers, no money.

We have to borrow equipment to do it, right? Yep. And we've interviewed prime ministers, you are here, you know, like... And that is a process of eating shit for seven years in a row. Yep. Yep. Because that's what it is.

How many times did you hear, no? How many times did you hear, oh, this is ridiculous? you guys are wasting your time. Get a fucking job. Yeah, yeah. It's true, right? And even when I do PR,

like, Linnae will take me out, we'll do some show. You know, Dana used to be a bellman at a hotel. I was 19 fucking years old. Yes, of course I was a Belman. You know, and people say, oh, it's like a rags to riches story.

He was a Belman, and now he's a sit. No, there's a huge fucking gap between Belman and sitting here today. But as a 19-year-old Belman, I looked around and I said, yeah, this isn't where I want to be in 20 fucking years. I'm leaving. I walked out the front door, and my buddy's like, what are you doing? I said, I'm quitting.

What happened? Nothing happened. Well, one of the things that happens, though, is with people who do their own thing. A, they're very cool to deal with most of the time. I love dealing with people where it's their own business, whether it's a restaurant or whatever. But I imagine in the fight game, Dan, I'm managing 500 or however many hundreds of fighters you have on your roster. who have that mindset, I can't imagine that's an easy job. Yeah, no, it's not.

The fight business is a, you know, the thing about the fight business, it's like a sexy business, like everybody. And as soon as somebody gets some money, they're like, oh, I want to be in the fight business. And it is one of the hardest businesses in the world to run, navigate. And there have been so many people who are a lot smarter than me, a lot more successful to me and put tons of money into it and have failed in this business. You know, I remember I did an interview in a previous life when I was working at a radio station. I interviewed Dillion White, and I asked him the heavyweight contender,

brilliant fighter, Dillion. And I said to him, Dillion, what's the thing that worries you most when you're up against another fire? Is it a killer left hook? It's knowing somebody can absorb a lot of punishment. Is it the fact that, you know, they've got deadly combinations? He looked to me, No. It's sitting in that corner, looking over at the other guy, in his eyes, and knowing that motherfucker's crazy. And I think that kind of separates the fighters, isn't it? It's that element of crazy that some of them have. No doubt about it. And you can look at it as crazy or absolutely brilliant in what it is they do. You have to, you know, it's, it's, the thing that I love about fighters is, is when I would go out and say, oh, this is, you know, it's Chuck Lidel and,

oh, I feel bad for him. Oh, he has to fight to make it. You know, the fighters feel bad for people like us. These people sit in bumper to bumper traffic every day to go sit in fucking cubicles and a job that they hate and they're miserable. These fighters, they'll, even the lower level guys that make less money, they'll fight and they'll go do incredible things

for the next three months and blow all their money, and they'll go back into camp and start training again. I mean, these guys do live incredible lives. And some of these fighters that are parents get to spend so much time with their families. And then they have these big chunks of time when they're gone because they're out on fight camp. But a lot of those guys feel sorry for regular people.

Yeah, I can imagine. And I think one of the difficult things must be if you run a promotion like the UFC, where you see a fighter, and they were once great, but there must be a part of you that you see them going downhill and you just want to step in and go, you were brilliant, you had your moment, you need to step away. Yep, I've done it many times, many times.

It's one of the hardest things to do. And I think if you're not just fighters, but professional athletes, period, tonight you guys are going to sit in Madison Square Garden, the most famous arena in the world. And when the Co-Main and Maine come out, 13,000 people are losing their minds when they walk out of the tunnels, right?

And they get up into the octagon. One will win. The place will erupt when they leave. I mean, it's got to be so hard to walk away from that, right? just the feeling of all that and the money. So once you're, I tell all these guys, this, this isn't a job, this isn't a career. You know what I mean? This is an opportunity for you to become as famous as you can possibly be.

Many people around the world see the great things that you've accomplished and make as much money as you can possibly make. And, and then there's a second part of your life that they have to go out and figure out. and figure out who they are and what they want to do. Yeah, because it must be so tough. If you've been the baddest man on the planet, it's very difficult to go from that to becoming an accountant. Do you know what I mean? 100%.

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Now I'm a fucking, which is absolutely wrong. You know, Tyson is beloved and is still doing very well for himself. But, you know, there's a whole different mindset that you have to get into once you retire and walk away from. And not just fighting, but professional sports in general. Because I remember reading Muhammad Ali's, one of Bahamma Ali's biographies, and they talked about the boxer, former heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson. And they said about Floyd, which I found so surprised. And this man was a genuinely great fighter for those of he don't know.

And every time he used to walk and defend his title, he carried a suitcase with him, which had a disguise. because he knew at one point he was going to lose and then he would wear that disguise and be able to slip out of the arena unseen. That to me was just, it was an insight into a man's mind, but it was also heartbreaking at the same time, you know? Yeah.

Even though you're on top of the world, you still know you're human and fragile. That's why I've seen literally in this business, I've seen guys walk in with the belt, entourage, the whole da-da-da-da-da-da. lose that night and walk out by themselves. No. Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow. It is a brutal. That's bad. Brutal. That is bad. Because, you know, again, we're talking about fighters. One of my heroes was Ricky Hatton. God rest his soul.

I love Ricky. Magnificent boxer, even bigger heart. Life and soul. A great guy. And I was reading an interview with him. I think he pretty much said himself, he never got over losing to Floyd. He never got over losing to Floyd Mayweather. You know, what are you talking about?

You were one of the best of your generation, and you lost up arguably pound for pound, one of the greatest, if not the greatest fire of all time. There's no disgrace in that. Well said. Absolutely right. Well said. But it's the mindset of a real fighter. Mindset of a real fighter is you want to be the best and you want to beat everybody.

if that is not the way you think you shouldn't even be fighting you're crazy that's when you're crazy when you say look across and that guy's crazy if that isn't your mindset you're crazy and you're fighting for all the wrong reasons it's you know it's so true because

it's like I said it's that balance isn't it because not only look if a soccer player goes on for too long you go I am what it used to be you know I remember him a few seasons back this guy was magnificent but there's also a danger element in combat sports. If you go on for too long, you're really risking your health

and your ability to function later on in life. And possible your life. Right. Well, we've made a very British interview and it gets depressing the longer we go. That's why I think. Let's talk about the, yeah, it's your specialty, man. Let's talk about the card. Because Dana, one of the things you famously changed the mind about is women in the UFC. And tonight, I mean, I'm not an expert, but I've been a fan for a long time. This has got to be probably the most exciting female matchup between Valentina and Shevchenko's Weir Le Zhang.

One of the greatest ever. Exactly. Not UFC ever in female fighting. And when you talk about super fights, right? This is a super fight. Wei Li Zhang never lost the belt. Still the world champion in her weight class. Valentina Shevchenko, who is

heavier, still the champion. Waye Lee is coming up to try to take her belt. and it's the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world versus the number two pound-for-pound fighter in the world. This is a true super fight. And what makes this one even more exciting is Waley-Zang is a pit bull. She will go after Valentina, and it will be a good fight.

I mean, I bet anything I own on this fight that this fight could be up for a fight of the night. Right, we're going to hold you to that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's super exciting, not least because the fighting. styles are so different because Valentina is so technical, graceful, the way she moves is just perfection. Like something out of Kung Fu movie. Yep. And then you've got

Wei Zhang who's an absolute brawler. It's super exciting. True. So when I was coming over here, the president called me and we talked about that fight for 15 minutes. He's totally pumped up. Is he coming to the fight? He's not, no. But he's excited for that fight. And he told me to say hi to Valentina.

Well, you've brought him up, so I wasn't going to bring it up. But one of the things you've had to, I don't know if it's the right word to say navigate, but you're not a political guy. And I don't think you'd take sides particularly. But Trump is a friendship you've had for a long time. And you've had to, well, not had to. I mean, I think you've always backed him and been there for him in the way that he has for you. Have you had any issues with, like, sort of being aligned with President Trump?

No, not really. Nobody's really ever come after me for that. I'm sure there's a lot of people that don't like me because I'm friends with Trump. You know what I mean? I could care less about that stuff. He is the guy. I literally was on the phone with him for, I don't know, what, 40 minutes? He had me laughing for 30 minutes of the call.

He's hilarious. He's the best guy. I don't know if you just saw the thing with the Osbournes. Have you seen that? No. So the Osborne family on their podcast, don't have to have a podcast or if they just filmed this. But the son is like, I'm going to play this voicemail. And he plays the voicemail.

And it's Trump leaving a message for Sharon and saying, Ozzy was a great guy. He was talented. So sorry that, you know, so I'm just calling to give my condolences to you and the family and all this stuff. Hi, Sharon. It's Donald Trump. And I just wanted to wish you the best and the family. He had grateful.

Ozzy was amazing. He was an amazing guy. I met him a few. few times and I want to tell you he was unique in every way and talented. So I just wanted to wish you the best and it's a tough thing. I know how close you were and whatever I can do. Take care of yourself. Say hello to the family.

Thanks. Bye. And then Sharon Osborne says, this guy and his wife have never been anything but incredible to me and my husband. And she said, let me make something very clear. I'm not American. I don't vote. I don't want to vote and I'll never vote.

so this guy doesn't need anything from me. And she starts crying at the end of the whole thing. But I've been telling people for over 10 years that that's exactly who that guy is. That's so interesting you say that because this is something that people really forget. I remember, and look, people can have whatever opinion about President Trump.

He's a politician. People should criticize him, disagree with him, whatever. But I remember my wife and I were watching one of the die-hard movies for Christmas. And there's a line in it where you've got, there's some kind of problem and the switchboard for a local area has to manage the phones for the entire city because of something that's happened. And the supervisor comes in and he tells the woman who manages it, you know, you're going to have to deal with this. And she says, black woman, she says, if you think I'm going to do that, you think I'm going to marry Donald Trump. They're shutting down the police ban. All calls will be coming through this switchboard.

And I'm going to marry Donald Trump. He's an aspirational figure 15 years ago. Right. And then when he ran for president, suddenly he became the worst person in the world. What do you think happened there? I don't know if this is true or not, but he was in Home Alone too. And I heard they took him out of the movie. They took his scene out of the movie because the little kid, McCauley Culkin, supposedly runs into him on the street.

And they have an exchange. And I heard they took that out of the movie. It's literally mentally ill. I mean, everybody used to love Trump. You know, then the whole thing about him being a racist, they're like, oh, he's a racist, he's this and that. You talk to any black people that have ever had any interaction with Donald Trump pre-running for president. I mean, he's the best. Tyson defends him to the death, you know?

And I know Tyson was getting a lot of shit for it in the beginning, but he is one of the greatest people that you'll ever meet. And he's turned it around. I mean, the comeback was, it's like something out of the UFC in a way, right? Right? Pretty crazy. When you buy seafood, what do you worry about most? Nutrition, sustainability, taste? I've asked all of those questions. This is why Wild Alaskan Company caught my attention.

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slash trig for $35 of your first order. Thanks to Wildelaskin Company for sponsoring. this episode. Well, that's the other thing. You know, when you talk about killer instinct, like we were talking earlier with certain athletes, you know, there are other people and other walks of life, including business, that have it.

He's the most resilient human being I've ever met in my life. And I've been in the fight business forever. You sure? Fact. I mean, if you look at what he went through the last eight years and how, and I don't care what side you're on,

there's no way you believe that they weren't coming after him. They're trying to put him in jail. They're trying to break him financially, all that stuff. And that guy kept getting up every day and grinding. Yeah, it's inspiring. And he's almost 80 years old, and that guy doesn't sleep. He is a workhorse. I mean, he's nonstop. And how was I talking to one of his people a couple days ago? But they were saying, yeah, my, oh, yeah, yeah, the guy at the stock exchange. Like, yeah, my wife works for him. And, you know, she was in the cabinet and he runs that team hard. Like, like when the night of the election, I was with him. And we were at Marlago and then we went to the convention center where he was announcing that he had won and everything

else. But all the kids, these are all young kids that worked for him in his campaign, they were fucking wiped out. You know, for the last three weeks leading up to the election, this guy was flying to three or four different states and doing rallies and all the young kids have worked for them. I mean, it's a life-changing moment for them, but they were exhausted. And they were all crying and, you know, they're all celebrating. But it's hard to keep up with that guy. He's a beast. Coming back to the card, it was a bit of a detail. Leon Edwards is back. We're British. So obviously that's exciting. Incredible fight too. Yeah. Tell us about that.

A credible fight. So the whole main card, people keep asking me, what's the best fight? What's the sleeper fight? I have no idea. The whole card is so good that any of these fights could be fight of the night, could be, that's another one, though. I mean, Edwards and Protest is an unbelievable fight. And another one that is interesting. I mean, you've been accused of giving certain fighters what they call Dana White privilege. Right. Right. Bo Nickel, is it fair to say that you were very excited about him and then he had a setback in a way that people. people didn't expect. Here's the stupidity and Dana White privilege. When you bring guys in, there's people that you think could possibly become world champions, right? As we've been talking through the whole interview, everybody wants to become a world champion. Well, there's people that you think have a much better chance than others do. So you prop these people up and you put them in positions and see what they're capable of doing. I mean, Connor McGregor is a guy that was accused of having Dana White privilege. Arguably,

one of the biggest superstars in sports, let alone the UFC. Ronda Rousey, when I brought her in, Dana White Privilege, huge superstar for us and literally launched female fighting for us. Bo Nickel is a guy that came in, you know, with a lot of heat on him. So, you You put them in these fights and in these positions to see if he can perform. That's what you do. So that's called fight promotion, is what that's called. You know, anybody that comes with Dana White privilege or all these other things that happen, you have a group of people, not just in UFC or in fighting, but in life, that if they don't make it and they don't get to where they thought they could,

it's never their fucking fault it's somebody else's fault I didn't have the Dana White privilege I didn't have this and I didn't have that and you know those type of people are always going to exist and finally on the card itself the headline fire

we haven't talked about some people are saying it's a very lopsided matchup do you which one the main event? Yeah the main event yeah that's crazy what was the number I said to you too how many years with Islam and was it 21.

If you add their records together, these guys haven't lost for 21 years, right? Jack Della came in on the contender series, right? And worked his way up and beat Bilal Muhammad, who was a nightmare for everybody. He beat him. This kid is gritty, tough, well-rounded,

and he's in a position now. And he got there on his own, no Dana White brother, he got there. And now he's going to fight one of the greatest of all time who's coming up to try to take his belt. This is an incredible opportunity. And when you go on, like, the prediction market stuff, you know, they got Islam at like 80-something percent chance to win. That's what I'm saying, right. Yeah, Polymarket Adam at like 80 percent to win the fight.

So he's looked at as this huge underdog. These are the greatest stories ever. and this is the fight of Jack's life. Jack wins this fight. There aren't words to explain how different his life will be on Sunday. Well, I guess one of the opportunities for him is Islam's coming up, right? Because that's not an easy thing to do.

How hard is that to go up? Well, there's two different ways to look at it. He's coming up to a heavier weight class where, you know, supposedly the guys in that weight class should be bigger, stronger, you know, blah, blah, blah. But on the flip side, you could argue that because Islam doesn't have to cut all that weight anymore, that he'll actually be stronger, faster, you know. And you always have to make the assumption that the guy who's coming up is going to be faster than the heavier guy. So there's so many different ways to look at it and break it down. And so while people always ask me, who's going to win. I have no fucking idea. I guess that's why it's still fun for me, you know. Yeah.

You know, on this show, we always criticize the UK. We're always talking about how bad the UK is. I want to ask you a pro-UK question. Yep. Why is it this small, miserable little island? Right? Just in the northern point of Europe produces so many great fighters. Great fighters.

I mean... Are you going to push back on my question? If you look at the UK... Look at the musical talent that has come out of the UK. Fighter talent. I mean, it is, it's a fascinating part of the world. Don't forget podcasting, Danny. And when you think about at one point, that tiny miserable island controlled most of the world.

Right. You know what I mean? Yes. The UK is a very fascinating place. And so many talented people have come out of there. It's cool. Yeah, it is. I know you tried to be negative, but it's hard to be.

It's, you know, it's a fascinating question and fascinating place. Because if you look, even at the Northwest, the Northwest has produced so many great fires, like Tom Aspinall, Badi to Badi. You know, it's produced just that tiny little kind part of the UK. It seems to produce fighters. Ricky Hatt and other people as well. So it's really exciting from a British point of view to see our boys come over and, you know, do really well.

And what's interesting too is that traditionally, you know, people who come from rough backgrounds, you know, you grew up rough, you grew up hard, usually become the best fighters. You know, that's why you see places like, you know, Mexico, tons of talent coming out of Mexico and South America. But, yeah, the UK is a fascinating place. I mean, if you weighed any other industry or whatever you want to call it, just on the music side, it's mind-boggling the talent that has come out of the UK.

Is there any particular country that you've got an affinity with when it comes to fires? You know how people say Brazilian soccer players or, you know, like Dominican baseball players? Yeah. Is there a country where you go, oh, I love those fighters? They've got something special about it. Well, realistically, this sport started in Brazil, and there's still a ton of talent that comes out of Brazil. When we went over, I'll give you two places, the UK and Australia.

When I first went up, the three no-brainers for me were the United States, Mexico, and the UK, traditionally big boxing countries. So those are the first three that I focused on. The UK happened a lot faster than Mexico did, and the sleeper was Australia. I mean, when we first went to Australia, there's a guy named Elvis Sinsic. He was the only guy out of that country at the time that had the skills to even come to the UFC. Now, multiple world champions, multiple top tens, and one of the greatest camps in the sport come out of Australia, which is fascinating. And what do you think that is?

Is it because it's kind of still quite, you know, if you look at it, it's quite a brutal country, Australia, the weather, the outback, all the rest of it. Everything that can kill you is in Australia. From snakes to spiders, the sharks, to jellyfish, I mean, you name it, it can all kill you over there. If you're someone who values free inquiry and independent thinking, which let's be honest is why you're probably watching trigonometry, our sponsor, Venice AI is the tool for you. Here's a hot take. AI is exploding right now. But seriously, most of the tools out there are just clones with slightly different.

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Coming back to the British conversation, I mean, Tom Aspinall, I was just asking the name before we started about his condition, he's still recovering from his iPog. It's been a big conversation since the last big event. Do you have any plans to kind of try and change things up so that these things don't happen as frequently? Is there a glove change? Is there a rule change? Is there anything that can be done to stop it? Because I was just saying to her, like, my three-year-old poked me in the eye.

And I had to go to a doctor and sit in a dark room for three days. It is really bad if you get put an eye by serial gun. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, getting poked in the eye by anybody isn't good. We've messed around with gloves. We've tried to do all these things to, you know, I think the big talk is if you can, if there's harder penalties for doing it, guys would be a lot more conscious of it.

Because you always have these guys when, if you're throwing punches and I'm blocking your punches, you know, and then you've got a guy that reaches out to catch something and the other guys coming forward, it's going to happen. It doesn't happen as much as it, you know, as it seems. I can't remember what the number was. Do you know the number when I have I-pokes that we've had? It's like a hundred and something I poaks over thousands of fights. But...

I guess some are much more meaningful than others, right? Like when you've got a heavyweight title fight and it ends early with no result because of an eye-poke, that's when people... I can see your face in the press conference afterwards. You're not happy that that's happened. Yeah, but it's, you know, you don't ever want to fight to end like that. And then the problem is,

And I think that, you know, I think Tom took it a little too hard. But, you know, you got all these people going, ah, he quit, he this, he that. It's easy to sit on the couch or sit on the chair and watch somebody get poked in the eye and go, oh, you go fucking, you know. Or get punched and knocked out. You go home, you recover, you get back in the gym, and we get back out and start fighting again.

So are you thinking about real? change? Yeah, we will definitely figure something out, but it's like bad decisions, bad referee calls. I mean, it's never going to go away. It's always going to be here. It's not like we're going to create some fucking invention that nobody can get eye-poked again. It's just not going to happen. I guess the logic from some people

is if you punish people more. Right. They're going to be more careful. Makes sense. Makes sense. Dana, We want to leave time to ask you questions from our supporters. So we'll ask you our final question, then we'll over to a substack. Which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Before Dana answers a final question at the end of the interview,

make sure to head over to our substack. The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this. Who wins in an octagon, Constantine or Francis, me or him? Who are some of your favorite fighters to watch and why? So, fuck, I don't know if I should tell this story. You should. I don't know, this was a very well-rounded interview. We've covered it at all.

Yeah, I think it was great. You guys look very disappointed in that answer. Yeah, we are. We are. You're like, when I think about you, I think of you as a guy who's like, the promotion, man. You haven't mentioned power slap. You haven't mentioned boxing. Like, that was your opportunity, man.

Yeah. Those will all have their time in place. Listen, PowerSlapp is an absolute beast. This thing is so incredibly successful. Remember, I said this here today, this will be bigger than the UFC. You don't have to train 10 years and be an incredible athlete to do it. And like I said earlier, or you said earlier to me, I sell holy shit moments for a living.

And you might have a whole night of fights and not have your holy shit moment. power slap is one, two, holy shit. Do you know, as a man who has a Latin American mother, you should get some Latin American mothers involved in that man. And that's a great point. I hope not. A lot of people don't understand what happens when you go to the ground and the ground game.

Everybody understands a slap, including women, and everybody gets it. And one of the big criticisms early with power slap, was that, yeah, it's good, short, snackable content on social media, but, you know, people are going to, every year. We have 30 million followers in two and a half years. And we're going to double this year what we did last year. So the thing just keeps going like this. It's going to be great. Boxing. Well, yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Eddie Hearn, there's been a bit of a war of words between you guys. Well, it's been kind of one way.

I'm trying to make it too. I'm trying to make it too. Help me out, Bena. What's going on there? I like Eddie. I don't dislike Eddie. And the thing is with Eddie and all the other guys in the boxing world, they're like, oh, we look forward to this and he's not doing it. He's not doing that.

These guys remind me of career politicians that have, you know, just been there and done their thing. And then they're running it then telling you all the great things that they're going to do. that they haven't done the last 25, 30 years. If any of those guys were truly visionary and were that good and that talented, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation right now about boxing because somebody would be the...

You know, it reminds me of... Like, if somebody wants to come in now into the MMA landscape and they're saying that they want to challenge me, right? I don't even look at any of those people as competition. anymore. My competition is baseball, basketball, football, and soccer. When I look at our brand, I want our brand and our sport to be the biggest in all of sports. And again, you know, like 25 years ago, I sound like a crazy person to a lot of people, but maybe I've been a lot more

people don't think I'm as crazy as people thought I was 25 years ago. So the Eddie Hearns of the world, And I like Eddie. I like him personally. But he's just, he's a politician and he's out there. He doesn't like the fact that I'm getting into this and I don't blame him. And, you know, we'll see in a couple of years. We'll see how this plays out. There we go. We've got a little clip.

Dana White destroys Eddie Hood with facts and logic. That's what we do here in Triggernovity. All right, head on over to Triggerpot.com.com. Where Dana is going to answer your question. Dana, for the love of Christ, he's very passionate. Can you please add more weight divisions like Cruiserweight? What has been the reason that there are no more, there are as many weight divisions as there are?