Dana White and the podcast host dissect UFC Freedom 250, a billion-view White House event featuring limited tickets and military precedence. They analyze White's conservative pivot, biohacking routines involving cold plunges, and controversial views on feminism, while debating moon landing conspiracies and celebrity rudeness. Ultimately, the conversation reveals how personal health strategies and political alignments shape modern masculinity, suggesting that true legacy lies in protecting family rather than chasing viral fame or record-breaking fitness. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Men's Mental Health Myths00:15:09
I hate this whole men's mental health bullshit that they talk about.
Unfortunately, when you're a man, you are the provider.
You are the one that takes care of your family.
You are the example for your kids when they grow up.
You can't be that guy that's I see these guys posting on social media, oh, I had a bad day and I'm so sad and all this other crazy shit.
So unattractive.
Oh, power slap.
Literally, I saw these guys at 17, 18 slapping each other on social media.
I took a deeper dive into it and I said, holy shit, this is interesting.
This thing does a billion views a month.
It's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of in such a short amount of time.
If I took you to dinner with him for an hour, you'd be as far left and have whatever perceptions of him you have.
It is impossible for you to get up from that dinner and walk away and say, I hate that guy.
It's impossible.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Katie Miller Podcast.
It's our first week in our brand new studio in Washington, D.C., and we're joined by the one and only Dana White.
Thanks for having me.
So, you are the talk of D.C. right now.
Maybe you know it, maybe you don't.
But the hottest ticket in town.
I've been in Donald Trump orbit for now a decade.
I've never received more text messages for people begging for tickets to UFC.
Why do you think there is so much interest?
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, because we're going to be on the South Lawn, but. you know, which has never been done before.
And the card is incredible and it's going to be a great night.
But you know, what's funny is we did a fight outside of Virginia, you know, over 10 years ago.
But I've never really been to D.C. until his first term.
And now I've been here so many times, I actually love this city.
It's a great city.
I love walking around here.
The people are great.
And I'm looking forward to doing this fight.
All the all the vision, the logistics, and everything are done.
Now we just got to execute and, you know, pull this thing off.
So, did you guys do a mock setup elsewhere to make sure that the setup would work on the lawn?
Literally just did it in Philly, and now all the stuff is being trucked from Philly to D.C. right now.
Who came up with the idea?
The president didn't.
We were at a fight, and he leans over and says, We should do a fight at the White House.
And I said, Yes, yes, we should.
So, how does one get tickets?
This is the question.
So, there's allotments.
Obviously, the president has the most.
I have 200.
Ari Emanuel has 200.
And, you know, we sent out invitations to people that we wanted to invite.
RSVPs are coming in now.
And, you know, I guess the best way to get the tickets is through the president.
He's got more than anybody.
But there's going to be like.
People that we do business with people that we invited Ari and I and then the president's invites I think there'll be world leaders there, but there's gonna be a lot of military there the president wants all the branches of the military represented at the fight and So more military people will be there than actual invites.
So this is gonna be a complete ignorant question How did you select or who selects the card for this specific fight?
Yeah, so I have a matchmaking team the matchmakers went out and Laid out every fight that was possible And then I picked the card.
And is this for those fighters?
This is like their peak.
They're very excited.
Where people reaching out to you saying, hey, I want to do this on the White House lawn?
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of guys wanted to fight on the, and girls wanted to fight on the card.
You know, I went with what fights really matter in the division, what fights we think will be great fights, and who can I count on that I know is going to show up and deliver.
You've been openly supportive of President Trump for a long time.
Has that ever cost you?
UFC any business either domestically or abroad?
I don't give a shit.
I don't know the answer to that question.
I've gotten to a point in my life, especially after COVID and all the nutty shit that went on during that time, that I only want to be in business with and talk to people that I'm aligned with.
Were you always red-pilled?
Always what?
Red-pilled, like conservative.
No, no, no.
I would have considered myself a lot more liberal.
I would have considered myself an 80s or 90s Democrat, you know, but.
I'm more of a common sense guy.
I'm not a very political person, but I'm all for common sense.
What was it that changed for you?
The world losing its mind and everything going nuts and most of the things that you and I have talked about during this podcast.
I would still consider myself liberal in certain ways, but very conservative in others.
A little bit of both.
Do you think politics and sports should stay separate?
And even outside of USC, right?
You're talking NFL, NBA.
Listen, I would love to.
I think, you know, when you think about in the 80s and 90s, religion.
Right?
That's basically what, like, politics now is like religion.
I mean, these guys are, everybody's fighting over all this crazy shit.
And I think we should go back to, you don't know who you voted for and you don't, you know, but I think it's up to the athlete or the organization or whatever if they want to be involved in politics or talk on politics.
It's up to the individuals or the teams or the leagues or whatever they are.
What's one thing you agree with President Trump on and what's one thing you disagree with President Trump on?
I don't think that doesn't have to be political.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, what we don't agree on is the best Rocky ever.
We argue about that probably more than we should.
It's kind of weird.
But I think when somebody is president, they're going to do things you agree with and things you don't agree with.
You're not in that position and whoever the president is.
And at the end of the day, my relationship with him, we're friends.
And you don't always agree with your friends on lots of things.
But it doesn't mean you don't be friends with him anymore.
He's a great guy.
He's a great human being.
He has a great family.
I love his family.
Ivanka and Jared are two of the greatest people you'll ever meet.
So I don't really get into any of that stuff.
As friends, I would say the biggest but weirdest thing we've ever disagreed on is Rocky, is the best Rocky movie.
How do you see the event at the White House shaping the future of UFC?
Do you think it draws more fans in?
Do you think it forever, you know, elevates that of combat sports?
Yeah, I think that more people are going to tune in globally for this fight, whether they. have ever watched the UFC, like the UFC, don't like the UFC, just to see it at the White House.
So obviously for the brand, I mean, even leading up to it, I mean, it's all anybody's talking about every time I see people or talk to people.
So yeah, it's really big for the brand.
Who surprised you the most behind the scenes as you work with some of the biggest athletes in sports?
Surprised me as far as what?
That either was kinder than you expected, crazy than you expected.
Drunker than you expected some some type of when you meet somebody and you're like, well, I wouldn't say that that that anybody really surprised me But I mean somebody like Conor McGregor the first night that I went to dinner with him and met him I literally left the dinner and called my partner Lorenzo and I said let me tell you what I Don't know if this guy is good enough or not if he can fight this guy can even throw a punch.
He's gonna be the biggest star ever.
So I did know that.
And then I would say, if you want to talk about surprised, it was probably Ronda Rousey.
Because I was not even remotely interested in having women fight in the UFC at that point in time.
I was trying to get people to accept men fighting in a cage and get it on television, let alone women.
And then I sat down and I met with her and we talked for like 20 minutes.
And 20 minutes into the conversation, in my head, I started going, holy shit.
I might actually do this.
She's the one that I think I can launch this whole thing with.
This might work.
That would probably be the thing that surprised me the most in my career.
You walked away from fighting because of the long term effects.
I previously talked with Mike Tyson on the podcast and talked about how he has some issues from fighting as well.
What do you say to others who are engaging in fighting?
How has it shaped the way you run UFC?
Have you put in place other things?
Good question.
Yeah.
Think about this.
In the 30 years, of the UFC, there's never been a death or serious injury.
Cheerleading can't say that, okay?
We spend so much money on health and safety, and obviously the big one is brain health.
But when you're a young, aggressive male that comes from places that people like you and I can never even imagine, and fighting is your way out, or fighting is what you were put on this earth to do.
You know, there's just no talking you out of it.
And the stuff that's wrong with me from fighting, I wouldn't take back one punch.
I wouldn't change any of it.
It was some of the greatest times of my life.
It was what I was passionate about.
And you could look at, there are people that work in coal mines and end up dying because of what they do and many other jobs, construction, you name it.
Life is dangerous.
And one thing we know is we're all going to die someday.
But how do you want to live and what do you want to do and what gets you out of bed every day and what excites you and what are you passionate about?
And no matter what it is, you know, some people it's jumping out of airplanes.
Some people it's, you know, everybody has their own crazy shit that they're into.
And as a grown adult, you make these decisions on your own, going in knowing what the dangers are.
Do you think you'll ever not do this?
You light up like no one I've ever seen talking, maybe except the president, who talks about what he does.
Yeah.
Do you think you'd ever not do this?
No, no.
And I can't even imagine a day where I actually consider retiring.
I just can't see it happen.
I mean, I go on these vacations for 10 days.
The generation before me, when they used to talk about retiring, I'm going to retire and sit on the beach and drink margaritas.
You'd be bored.
You know, all this.
Yeah.
When you do it, how many days can you sit on the beach and drink margaritas?
And like, I'll be on a 10-day vacation and I'm like, if I got to put suntan lotion on my body one more time and, you know, get me the hell out of here, I'm ready to go back to work.
You know, there's always these, you could take these breaks, but then you want to get back and you want to get up every day and be excited and passionate about something.
So your wife you met when you were how old?
We were like 12 or 13.
I think what blows me away about that is you look at fertility rates in our country, you look at the declining marriage rates in our country, you specifically look at, I was reading an article today about how young women hate men more than ever.
And they're like, men are good for nothing.
You're like, how did we get here?
And so for someone like you, how did you know so young that that was meant to be your person and vice versa?
Well, I wouldn't say that we knew that young.
We were friends.
So we were friends when we were in school.
And, you know, we didn't get together until we were 25 years old.
But we'd known each other.
I think that probably happens a lot.
People you grew up with, you know, that you've known for a long time and that you trust and have a personal relationship with are usually the people you probably end up with.
I'm not saying that's always the case, but I bet the majority of the time that's the way it works.
You have a lot of experience with young men.
and with young women.
Are you seeing that trend where people are delaying finding your significant other, starting a family for sake of their careers?
Yeah, I think you nailed it.
It's a whole weird thing right now with young men and women.
I think that the other thing that's happening is a lot of people are having kids and not getting married.
Yeah, times are changing from when I was young.
But these young men, I think, you know, we went through COVID and the whole woke era and all the weird shit that went on during that period.
A lot of the young males felt displaced.
And I don't know, it was a weird time.
And, you know, I always get accused.
I've talked to Lene, my head of PR.
We talk about this all the time because she sits on all these interviews where I'm accused of being the head of the manosphere.
Whatever that means and that you know toxic masculinity The only people who hate toxic masculinity are women who hate themselves Interesting.
I got men saying it to me.
What's that mean?
What's that mean when you have men saying it to you?
It means that men in our country need to grow up hair again.
Well, what's funny is I did this I spoke at Harvard Business School and The guy who who was interviewing me for the Q&A was the guy who did the Forbes story on me.
I was on the cover of Forbes.
And he kept talking about the manosphere and toxic masculinity.
By the end, I told Lene, he's got me convinced.
I think I might actually be a toxic male.
Traditional Gender Roles Matter00:03:06
You know, he was talking about my office and the things that are in my office.
And, you know, I grew up in the 80s when, you know, Men were men.
Now it's a whole other world out there.
And I just think that.
Don't you think it's that women want a man to take care of them, to step into that provider, caretaker role?
And that's so many men are not doing that these days.
And that's why it's just called toxic masculinity is what is a traditional gender role.
It is never, ever going to change.
I don't care how powerful a woman is, what she does.
Women want to be taken care of, treated right, and they want to feel safe.
It's just, it's, that's nature.
And it's a man's job to do all that.
As I get deeper into this, you'll realize how toxic my masculinity is.
But it's like the, I hate this whole men's mental health bullshit that they talk about.
Unfortunately, when you're a man, you are the provider.
You are the one that takes care of your family.
You know, you are the example for your kids when they grow up and your sons, you know, and your daughters.
And unfortunately, you can't be that guy that's, I see these guys posting on social media, oh, I had a bad day and I'm so sad and all this other crazy shit.
So unattractive.
Oh, it's just, it's unattractive to other males, let alone women.
I can't even imagine.
Yeah, I'm really against all that shit.
So, yeah.
I'm a strong believer in that, like, when feminism started increasing in our country, so did the decline in the birth rate.
Because, as they told women, you need to be equal to a man, you need to go to a workplace.
Women stopped having babies because they thought that's what they needed to do is have this career that served, and the career ladder is how they were going to become equal to that of a man.
And it's like when women lost their femininity, instead of having a baby and having a family is the most beautiful thing I can do as a contributor to this society.
It doesn't matter how much I make, it doesn't matter how much I earn or what my job title is.
Being a mother is the preeminent role.
And when society told women that that wasn't it anymore, Is when you started having weak men.
That's my theory.
Yeah, you could be right.
I don't know how it all started, but there's nothing I hate when men don't act like men.
It's like, it drives me absolutely crazy.
So there's two divergent ways to discuss this with you.
One is to say that in your own family, you have three kids, you have a wife that you're not in your second or third wife, to my understanding.
So, how do you think that having those traditional gender roles has benefited your family?
And benefit your children.
Yeah, well, in every way.
I mean, I'm the guy that goes out and I work and I provide, you know, for my family.
And what my wife is really good at, like I'm busy.
Family First and Bora Bora00:03:05
You were just saying, are you traveling as much?
And yeah, I travel a lot.
She's the one that says, I don't give a shit what you're doing.
We're taking 10 days and we're going here for this.
And the kids have a play and this and that.
You know, she runs the house and makes sure that I am aware of what's going on with the family and we're going to go spend some.
some time together.
Like I might not be there every day, but, you know, we'll take three big trips a year and go away for 10 days and spend real good time together.
I showed up, you know, my kids are older now.
They're 24, 25.
My daughter is 19 and she goes to college.
And, you know, I was there for, if I wasn't there for their games or their plays or their whatever, what I was lucky in that I had one of the biggest production studios in Nevada.
So we would literally live stream their games and I would watch them and I could interact with them through, you know, because technology was, I was very lucky where technology was when my kids were growing up, but I've been a part of everything that they did growing up and still now today.
What was your favorite memory of raising your children when you're like, we were at home, we were doing this, or I was carting them to this or that thing?
Yeah, so no matter how busy I was or what I did or how late I was out the night before, I always drove my kids to school.
Taking the kids to school, I used to love it.
And, you know, there's tons of great memories of, we went on a trip to Bora Bora one time.
And I tell everybody, it's a pain in the ass to get there, but it is the greatest time that you will ever spend with your family if you take them to Bora Bora.
It's amazing.
Probably the greatest trip I've ever been on.
And I love, like, Italy and some other places, but Bora Bora, you have to when you're done having your 43 kids, you guys need to, when they're old enough, you know, when the youngest one is old enough, go on a trip to Bora Bora for a few days.
And it's special.
Is it because you were off?
the grid or is it just the landscape?
Like what made it better?
Everything about it.
It is definitely off the grid.
They have the huts that are in the water and you literally jump out your back door and Bora Bora, basically this is Bora Bora.
It's the mouth of a volcano that Bora Bora is in.
And then once you get out, it's like in the middle of the ocean.
But inside the mouth of this vault, like the greatest, and I'm not a big ocean guy and all that shit, but the greatest snorkeling you could ever do.
It's hard to explain.
You have to experience it.
I'm just telling you, I've done just about everything you could do.
When your kids are young, take them to Bora Bora, and I promise you, when I see you in a few years again, you'll tell me you were right.
Greatest trip we've ever been on.
I heard I'll add it to our list.
So what, did your wife cook dinner every night for your family, and how did that work?
Family dinners, that's very important.
Turning Around the UFC Talent00:10:37
Yeah.
Well, she's Italian, so yeah, family dinners are important.
You know, and on Sundays, she'll have her family over and our kids, and her family is very involved.
With the kids and everything too.
Grandparents are, you know, there's nothing better than having good grandparents.
I had incredible grandparents.
So, you know, it's special.
So I said there's two divergent ways to look at this.
One was through the fact that you live by example and you have a beautiful family.
And then the second is to say that you have a lot of young men, I would say, that you're responsible for at UFC and young women.
What do you say to them and what encouragement do you give to them?
to kind of stay on the right path, so to speak?
Nobody has ever asked me that before.
So obviously, we get into situations where we will take these people that nobody knows.
And then all of a sudden, whether it's coming off the Ultimate Fighter, Contender Series, or just coming into the UFC, and then all of a sudden you start to become famous.
And fame is a very weird thing.
And some people deal with it.
Well, and some people just nosedive and mess their whole lives up.
And I've dealt with both.
And one of the things that I've noticed early on, and I'll give the best example I can give you is The Ultimate Fighter.
So The Ultimate Fighter, we film this show, then it airs, and there's a gap between when they leave from filming to when it actually airs.
So I always tell them, you know.
I don't know anything about your life personally.
But as soon as this show airs, everything's going to change and it's going to get really weird.
Whoever gives a shit that you're coming home tomorrow is probably who you should stick with.
And it could be girlfriend, wife.
It could be your trainers, your managers, whoever they are.
As soon as you start to become famous, all the creeps are going to come out of the woodwork and start trying to work their way into your life and tell you all these things that they can do for you.
And it can be anything, managers, women, whatever.
Whoever gives a shit that you're coming home tomorrow is probably who you stick with.
And I've seen a lot of these fighters start to head toward divorce once they become famous and they start to make money.
And I always try to encourage them not to do it, especially if they have kids, especially if they have kids.
Because I've seen so many people, you know, you go out and you're on the road.
22,000 people are going crazy when you walk into the arena, pictures, autographs, and then you get home to reality and you got two or three kids and your wife's like, take the trash out, do this, do that.
And these guys, you know, egos start to get in the way.
And so if you end up getting divorced and then you get remarried and you start all over and you left these kids behind, the grass is a grainer.
It's going to be the same shit with a different person.
You know what I mean?
That's just the reality of life.
And I try to talk these guys out of it.
And I don't know.
I don't know if I answered your question, but that's the best answer I got.
Do you encourage them to find someone and settle down?
Do you find that that makes someone better?
Or do you just not care?
No, no, no.
Like, how does that work?
That's beyond your purview.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's, that is none of my business.
None of my business.
But when these guys start to go through it in their marriage, because fame is a very crazy, weird thing, and everybody thinks they want to be famous, they start to be famous.
Then it's lonesome.
The only thing famous is good for is getting into restaurants other than that, other than that, it's useless.
How much money does a guy go for making?
So say, they go from being broke to how much, how quickly?
Well, it depends on.
I mean, the best example would be Conor Mcgregor.
Yeah, you know he was on what you would consider welfare in Ireland when he when he started, and you know guys made hundreds of millions of dollars not doing bad.
Yeah, when you Took UFC from near bankruptcy to being a global powerhouse.
What moment was it for you that you were like, okay, I got it.
This is going to work?
The Ultimate Fighter, the finale of the Ultimate Fighter season one.
Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner fought.
And as soon as the fight was over, I said, that's it.
We got it.
Is there something else in a parallel today that you look at that's also failing where you're like, I could go take that from zero to hero?
That's outside of UFC.
Because if you've done it once, you can probably strike gold twice.
So what is it?
Power slap.
Literally, I saw these guys in 17, 18 slapping each other on social media.
I took a deeper dive into it and I said, holy shit, this is interesting.
And I called the Fertita brothers and I said, hey, I'm into this slapping stuff.
I think I'm going to do this.
And they said, how much money you need?
And I said, I need a million dollars from both of you.
So all three of us put up a million bucks and this thing does a billion views a month.
No way.
A billion views a month.
Yeah.
It's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of in such a short amount of time.
Did you bring them into the Trump orbit or how did that work?
I think that, well, they're hardcore Republicans.
Sure.
And, you know, my relationship with the president enabled me to create a relationship with them, with the president.
So if you look back at the history of what you've done for UFC when you went to the Frida brothers and said, Let's do this to present day.
You've done a lot of time, energy, spending trying to recruit, retain good talent, and really turn around UFC from when you went to them and said, Let's get going.
Right.
What do you think today, as you're still trying to build the brand, are you still traveling as much?
What are you looking for when you go look for a potential fighter?
Where do you think are the new, like, up and coming markets?
Yeah.
Yes, I still travel a lot and it's all about finding new talent.
So the difference is the UFC has become a global sport now.
So there isn't a place on earth that I can't find a fighter.
I mean, we're going to do a fight for the second time this year in Azerbaijan.
We haven't done a fight in Spain yet, but I can literally get a fighter from anywhere in the world.
So people, when I grew up, your parents would put you in karate or taekwondo.
Mixed martial arts is the new martial art that everybody trains in whether they're going to become a fighter or not.
So it's much easier to find talent now than it was.
25 years ago.
Do you find that consistent across foreign countries?
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Especially in places like Russia and a lot of these rough countries, there's a lot of talent coming out of there.
How much of your day do you spend just doing operations versus recruiting versus building new events?
All of it.
I mean, I literally do all of that every day because now I'm involved in boxing.
I told you Power Slap, the UFC.
So we're always looking for new talent.
In all of those different companies, we're always looking where we're going to put on the next event.
You know, that's all part of everything that I do every day.
Do you personally review every new fighter that comes in?
Like, do you just know now when you see somebody?
Yeah, well, what happens is, well, I have a matchmaking team that tees me up on the guys.
We do a show called the Contender Series, which is literally the best show on television if you're a fight fan.
All unsigned guys come in.
They fight right there.
It's like a job interview.
And I don't care what you've done in the past.
You're obviously really good.
That's why you're here.
Or the matchmakers wouldn't show me right here, right now, who you are and what you have.
The best fight show on TV.
And we do that once a year.
And that is like my favorite thing to do.
I could do that.
I actually like that better than seeing the big stars fight.
So I'm all about recruiting and watching and evaluating young, up-and-coming talent.
What's been the best event you've put on and the best fight you've watched?
Hmm.
The best event I've ever put on.
It would have to be the Sphere.
I would have to say the Sphere.
You know, have you been yet?
No.
All right.
When you're in between having kids and here's what you need to do.
Okay.
Whatever band you and your husband love, you have to see them play at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
It's a really cool experience.
What you do is you take your kids and you all go to Vegas and you do the Wizard Of Oz because they have the Wizard Of Oz playing in there much more my speed.
Huh, I said that's much more my speed.
Yeah yeah yeah um, but like the Eagles yeah, did a stint there and that's cool.
You know all these great bands.
It's, it's a really cool experience, um I so the best event I ever did was there.
Hardest one we've ever pulled off until the White House and the best fight i've ever seen.
I mean, that's a tough one.
We we just figured out that in in my 25 years of doing this, I've watched over 10,000 fights.
Wow.
Yeah.
So to pick one that was the best I've ever seen would be tough.
So there's been a lot of celebrities who have come to UFC.
Did you know that they were coming in vans?
And who's been like, oh, man, I cannot believe they came to my event.
There's got to be one of those moments.
Well, yeah, probably.
I don't remember exactly when it was, but I would say the only one that I didn't know was coming was like we're at an event one time and somebody goes, Bruno Mars is here.
I'm like, Bruno Mars is here.
The Best Fight Ever Seen00:13:02
So I walk over to him.
I'm like, what are you doing?
He's in these seats over.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Why don't you?
He's like, no, no.
Buy my own ticket.
Buys his own tickets walks in the front doors like everybody else does sits in his seats then leaves Bruno Mars and and Speaking of Bruno Mars have you ever seen him no I Don't care if you don't like that type of music.
I don't care if you don't know one song if you've never seen Bruno Mars in concert It is one of the greatest.
He's one of the greatest performers of all time.
Did you go to his concert after he went to yes, I did so I went and saw a show he does this He plays at the Park MGM Theater, which is a small venue.
When him and his band play, you feel like there's nowhere they'd rather be than right there on stage playing.
It's one of the greatest shows you will ever see.
Anybody watching this, if you've never seen Bruno Mars, trust me, you need to.
I want to go back quickly to how you raised your family.
You've said publicly you've raised your sons differently than you've raised your daughter.
How so?
Oh, yeah.
How so?
Yeah.
Well, my sons could do things that my daughter couldn't.
And I don't give a shit what anybody says about that.
There are things that.
That, that that your boys can do that, you that your daughter can't.
Um, and I was very involved in her.
You know her relationships.
Uh, you know from from the first one what happened when she brought a guy home.
The first time i've had some.
I'd be very scared to do that if you were my dad.
The first one.
That that you know she was a freshman in high school, without telling this whole story, but you know uh, she was supposed to be home And me and my daughter are like, you know, we're cool.
Her and my wife fight like they're sisters.
And my wife was out of town.
She's like, hey, she starts blowing me up.
Savannah is supposed to be home at 11.
You make sure.
I said, relax.
I got it.
You know, me and Savannah, whatever.
11.03, 11.04, 11.05.
So I FaceTime her.
She puts me to, she pushes me to, you know, and.
We're not like that.
So this whole thing blows up.
Now she had somebody who used to drive her around and whatever because she's a freshman until she got a license, got a car.
And she wasn't with her.
So this whole thing blows up.
And let's just say the poor kid that brought her home, yeah, he knows.
I'm like, this is going to be interesting.
Let me see if the dad calls me on this one.
Without getting into it, it was not a good night.
Oh boy.
What's the harm?
She was on her way home, but the person who was supposed to be driving her home wasn't driving her home.
It was somebody else.
Did you go outside?
Oh, you're damn right I did.
And I've never done anything like that with my sons.
My sons are going to have to deal with their own relationships and all that stuff.
But my daughter, yeah, I've been very involved in all that stuff.
Did the poor kid survive?
He did.
He did, and then he ended up becoming her boyfriend.
And he never came to the house ever the entire time they dated.
Never came.
Not once did that kid come to the house after that night ever again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But he ended up being her boyfriend.
Yeah.
What's been the hardest part about stepping back as your kids have gotten older?
It hasn't been hard for me.
I'm actually, it's been really hard for my wife, but not for me.
I'm actually happy for them that they're transitioning into these, you know, New places in their life.
I'm happy for them.
You know, when my oldest son left the house first, it was weird.
Certain energy leaves your house when your first kid leaves, and then you know, obviously, the second and the last.
You know, it's you go through all these changes.
The first one leaves, and it's weird, then the second one leaves, and it's weird, and then you know, you kind of know what to expect by the time the third one leaves.
I've been okay with it, I've been good.
How did you teach your kids about money and privilege growing up?
Probably the way they did.
We never talked about money ever, or you know.
We just, and I got to credit my wife 100% for all this, we just lived like normal, you know, and what your kids, what is normal to them.
Like we had a nice house and we had nice cars and things like that, but we never talked about money or it wasn't like that and it's still not like that.
And my youngest son wanted to drop out of school, college, and start a business.
And I said, he came back, he pitched me it.
I said, this is actually not a bad idea.
But you're going to work.
You're not going to just, you know.
So you're going to go out and you're going to put in applications.
I'm not going to make calls.
I'm not.
So I made him go out and put out applications.
And I said, if I drop dead tomorrow, this is what you're qualified to do.
You didn't go to college, you know.
So he went out and put out applications, and he ended up working at U-Haul.
For a while.
Did he drop out and work at U Haul?
So after he dropped out, he had to go out and look for jobs and he got a job at U Haul.
And he had to clean out the back of the trucks.
He had to fix broken taillights.
He had to do, you know, move trucks from different places.
You have to have that shitty job that you don't like at a young age so that you can understand, you know, I could have made a thousand phone calls and got him some, you know, uh uh, nope, we're not doing that.
And to his credit, he went out, he did it, and he learned.
Did he go back to school or did he start?
No, he's involved in this business.
It's a great idea.
Everything he said to me was dead on with this business and how it would go.
And it was actually a brilliant idea.
And it's what he's into and what he's passionate about.
Has fatherhood changed your perspective on success and what really matters?
Yeah, definitely.
And that's the other thing.
Growing up their whole life, I was never, you know, you should be a doctor or a lawyer.
You got to do this and that.
My thing is for my kids is when everybody asks me what the key to being successful is, people think the key to success is money or fame or any of this stuff.
If you get up every day and you're happy and you like your life, you are more successful than most of the people in this world.
The key to success is being happy, whatever that means.
My kids told me, Hey, dad, I want to pump gas when I get older.
I love being, I love the smell and this and that.
Awesome.
Knock yourself out.
Go be happy.
So, in every episode of the podcast, we play the game of would you rather?
You can choose one or the other.
That's it.
Would you rather have every fight end in a controversial decision or every fight end in 10 seconds?
Neither.
I want neither of those.
Yeah, I said you have to pick one.
Those are both horrible.
We'd be out of business in six months.
Those are both horrible.
So which one?
Neither.
Those are brutal.
controversial decision that pisses everybody off or over in 10 seconds, which would piss everybody off if every fight was over in 10 seconds.
The great thing about fighting is, and especially in MMA, is there's so many different ways to win and lose that I say this.
What I sell for a living, I sell holy shit moments, right?
So when I put on a fight, and I put on a fight almost every Saturday, I'm asking you to stay home every Saturday or to come to my fight.
And I got to have three or four holy shit moments where, you know, if you're at home at a bar or you're live in the venue where everybody jumps out of their seats and you know um, and it's the variety of wins and you know the way the fights end that makes it so exciting.
Would you rather have Taylor Swift handle all of your sports betting picks for a year, or face Logan Paul in a slap fight challenge?
I'm actually uh, Taylor Swift is impressive.
What, what that woman has built?
Uh, i'm gonna tell you a crazy story.
Okay, you're like.
You're like no, this isn't how this game works.
You're just supposed to answer the questions here.
So I'm in a meeting with Walmart corporate and they're telling me about their business and they were telling me that one of their stores, their whole like sporting goods section, got wiped out.
Canoes, tents, this.
People went in and bought it and the store was like, this is crazy.
What's going on?
And they realized like 10 miles out of town, there was a some sort of festival.
So people were coming in and buying tents and all this stuff.
So they try to see what's going on in all the different areas.
Then adult diapers started selling out in all of their stores.
One store got hit, all the adult diapers were gone.
Then a week later, another store in another city, all the adult diapers got wiped out.
Taylor Swift concerts.
They were buying adult diapers so they didn't miss one song.
No.
Yeah.
So when you really know you've hit a level of success where grownups are buying adult diapers so they don't miss one of your songs at your concert, I don't know how you can gain success better than that.
Taylor Swift, good for adult diapers.
Yeah.
I'll let Taylor Swift do my sports betting for me.
Would you rather run the UFC with no social media or no pay-per-view?
No pay per view.
The money?
We're not pay per view now.
We just went to Paramount.
We're on Paramount now, and it's streaming.
It's no pay per view.
Would you rather corner your kid in their first pro fight or be the referee for it?
I did corner my kid in his first pro fight.
My son Aiden fought, and I cornered him.
Yeah.
Who would you rather have co host the roast of Dana White?
Donald Trump and Tony Hinchcliffe, or Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn?
That's funny.
You'd have to do Trump and Tony.
I mean, that would be brutal.
Joe Rogan doesn't like roasts.
He doesn't believe in roasts.
That you have a friend that you care about and you go shit all over him.
And, you know, he doesn't believe in that.
Trump and Tony absolutely believe in it.
What's your go-to cheat meal?
Italian.
Pasta.
What's the craziest thing you've ever spent money on?
Meteorites.
What?
Yeah, exactly.
There you go.
See?
Great answer.
I own a bunch of meteorites.
Can you explain that further for me, please?
When you make money, you buy some dumb shit.
You buy some dumb shit.
So when you go into the UFC offices, like I have, I have a saber-toothed tiger skull.
It's like the nicest skull that exists.
If you went to the La Brea tar pits, it's where they have the most.
None of them are like my skull.
The full skull, the teeth, everything.
What's that run you these days?
I don't know what it's worth now, but I think I paid like $500,000 or $600,000 for it when I got it.
Cool.
I have a full samurai from the early 1600s.
I have samurai swords from the 1600s, and I own meteorites.
One of the meteorites is from the 1800s, was found in the 1800s.
I have like six.
Where do you go to buy those?
Did you ever see Joe Dirt?
Yeah.
Where do you go to buy the meteorites, though?
You buy them in auctions, like through Sotheby's.
So you remember in Joe Dirt when he thought he had a meteorite and it was basically, it was, you know, it was the things that they drop out of the toilets from the airplanes.
Collecting Skulls and Samurai Swords00:04:41
Yeah.
So I actually bought a meteorite and I sent it to David Spade and I said, hey, Joe Dirt, now you actually really own a meteorite.
Do you use AI at all at UFC?
How are you going to integrate it?
So the White House promo that we just did is AI.
That's cool.
Yeah, the whole promo is AI.
Even my voice isn't my real voice.
Wow.
Yeah.
My guys put together the whole promo for the White House without one guy going into the sound booth, filming or anything.
The only thing that's real in the spot is the fight footage.
Do you think that's going to be the future of the White House?
It already is.
It's not the future.
It's now.
It's already happening.
Who's the rudest celebrity you've ever met?
Oh, that's a good question.
What a great question.
Let me really think about this so I can really fucking stick it to whoever it was.
Who will we run into?
Who?
Diddy.
Oh, Diddy.
100%.
The biggest douchebag ever.
But the other one is the owner of the warriors.
The owner of the Warriors.
I love going to NBA games, and I'm a big Celtics fan.
And me and R. Emanuel go to Celtics versus Warriors, right?
So I got my Celtics hoodie on, and we're sitting there.
And I can't remember his name.
The owner of the, of the.
He's like the majority owner, him and his wife.
And they come in and they're sitting a couple seats over from us and he walks up to me.
He's like oh, I heard you were here this and that.
He's like, are you serious with that, with that hoodie?
You know, I get it.
Whatever, I think he's joking.
So he literally starts trying to unzip my thing, my hoodie and whatever.
So well, I start grabbing his and i'm gonna pull his off too.
If we're gonna, what do we?
You know, and you know his wife's talking smack to me and and uh, You know, I'm thinking this is all in fun and whatever.
And then she goes like this, and she's got championship rings on every finger.
And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, you know.
So we go through this whole thing.
And he sits down, and we're watching the game, and halftime's coming up.
Now, if you've ever gone to an NBA game, at the end, they have like a green room and stuff that you're going back in.
And Ari leans over to me and says, he says, you're not going to be able to go back there if you don't take that hoodie off.
And I said, well, tell him he can keep his stale fucking pretzels and his fucking shitty beer.
I'll sit here during halftime.
I'm not taking my fucking Celtics hoodie off, right?
And to Ari's credit, me and Ari's are out there during halftime and just like, are you fucking kidding me?
What makes this fun is that you have Warriors fans and you have, I'm actually pissed off because I didn't realize last night the Celtics played in Philly, right?
So I go into Philly when the Celtics, it's the playoffs right now.
And the Philly fans are incredible, man.
They're always yelling at me.
You got some balls wearing that in here.
UFC socks.
You know, they're yelling stuff.
And it's part of the fun of being a fan of these different teams.
And you're getting these owners and these guys right now that don't want the opposing fans.
I just saw these two guys talking about the Red Sox, which is my team in baseball, ditching because they sell Yankee gear to the Yankee fans.
And listen, I am not a Yankee fan.
I'm a Red Sox fan.
But you want different fans to show up and just create this energy and buzz inside your arenas.
It's like if I only wanted Conor McGregor fans to show up to all my fights.
It's just, it's a weird thing that's going on in sports right now.
But, you know, obviously he's one of the rudest people that I've ever come across.
Like, just blatantly, it was fucking crazy.
The other one is P. Diddy.
Tony Hawk used to have these charity events.
And when my kids were little, you'd go to these charity events and like lots of celebrities would be there, so everybody would do things for each other's kids.
So I had my niece at one of them and Diddy shows up.
And uh, it was at Ron Burkle's house and my niece was like all excited, like oh my god, P Diddy's here and whatever.
Health Hacks with Gary Brecca00:04:59
I said awesome yeah, go take a picture with him.
And uh uh, you know she comes back and i'm like, did you get a picture?
She's like no, they were scary.
You know the guys?
There would 10 security guards, right?
Like 10 security guards.
You need security at a fucking kids' event.
And then they were rude to her and scared her.
That's who's listening to your fucking shitty music, okay?
That's who's listening to this.
Are you fucking kidding me?
And that's how you're going to treat some girl that's a fan and wanted a picture with you?
And yeah.
And Conor McGregor was a P. Diddy fan.
Conor ran into him at a USC game, I think, and wanted to punch him in the face when he met him.
So.
Yeah.
I'm Brad.
Yeah.
What's your typical day like?
I get up every day around 8 o'clock, go to the gym, work out, and then I'm in the office all day.
Because the guys are going to care.
What's your workout routine?
Well, I'm 56, so my routine now is not to get fat and not to get hurt.
You know what I mean?
I'm not in there trying to break any world records or anything.
I'm just, those are my two goals.
Don't get fat and don't get hurt.
What do you eat in a typical day?
Well, Yesterday was a really bad day.
What'd you eat?
Yeah, I've been, I've been, so I met this guy, Gary Brecca, like three, four years ago.
And I literally went on this total health kick, got in the best shape of my life at like 54 and 55.
And then, you know, in the last, I'd say, eight months, I've been, I got into cigars.
I started smoking cigars.
And I love this Yamasaki Japanese whiskey that goes with the cigar.
So the last eight months, I've been living a little more than I did the last three years.
Have you talked to Bobby Kennedy about the diet he's put everybody else on?
It's like only protein with fermented vegetables.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Listen, these guys that can do these hardcore diets and live like that for 20 years, I'm impressed.
Rob Lowe, the actor, I heard this guy's been like keto for like 30 years.
But that's why he's looked exactly the same.
He looks great, right?
Yeah.
Looks just like he did in his own house.
I agree.
Well, that ain't me.
That ain't me.
I couldn't do it that long.
I get on these kicks.
So I meet Gary Brecca.
I literally build this whole facility at UFC headquarters with the red light bed.
And I still do that stuff every day as part of my workout, the superhuman protocol.
I do it every day.
I cold plunge this morning.
I have a cold plunge in my room, in my hotel, everywhere I travel to.
I do not get up and not cold plunge ever.
But then I get into smoking cigars.
So I build a cigar bar at the UFC headquarters now.
Yeah anyway i'm, i'm all over the map, but when I get into something i'm like totally into it.
Are there any supplements you swear by?
Yeah, so again the Gary Brecca thing.
I was on a bunch of of uh you know doctor's pills for blood pressure and all.
I'm on no pills, i'm only on supplements.
Gary Brecca got me off all that stuff, and the thing that's great about Brecca is he got me to a place where I realized that I could uh, I could, control my health, and not with pills, but with supplements and all these other things like red light and cold plunging and all the other stuff that he does, sauna.
So I do that, yet I live a little too.
Have you had a conversation with Brian Johnson too, the other biohacker out there?
Yeah, yeah.
I've met with him.
We've talked at length.
His is hardcore, hardcore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yeah, I've looked at it.
It's called the blueprint, right?
I think it's called the blueprint.
What advice would you give to somebody much younger than you, say 20s, 30s, 40s, about making similar overhauls to their health?
Listen, I'd say go guns a blazing when you're in your 20s and 30s.
Have fun.
Because once you start getting up toward 50, the party's over.
Yeah, live your life.
Live your life.
Yeah, I don't think you have to be overly crazy about anything.
Live and have fun and enjoy yourself.
the day will come when you have to start really paying attention to your health.
Do you eat anything differently when you travel versus when you're at home?
That's a good question.
I'd say I eat worse when I'm on the road.
I probably eat worse when I'm on the road.
I eat much better when I'm home and I'm in my routine.
I like routines.
And I try to keep as close to my routine as I can when I'm traveling.
Live Your Life and Have Fun00:02:56
What's your favorite conspiracy theory?
The moon.
The moon.
I got a buddy.
My buddy Skip.
Every single dinner we eat at, he and one of my other guys, Hunter, fight over the moon landing the entire dinner, every dinner.
Did we land on the moon?
Hunter believes it happened, Skip believes it didn't, and we got to listen to this shit every time we eat dinner.
Crazy.
What song always puts you in a good mood?
What song?
Oh, wow.
What song always puts me in a good mood?
Another great question that I should have a quick answer to.
I would say miss you by the Rolling Stones.
What's your biggest fear?
My biggest fear.
I really don't have a lot of fears.
I would say my only fear, if I had to say, is something happening to one of my kids.
We close every podcast with the same question.
If you could host a dinner party with three people, dead or alive, who's sitting at the table and what are you eating?
Who's sitting at the table?
Well, I say this all the time, and it fits in this place, in this podcast, in this city.
You know, if you look at the people that hate on President Trump, right?
I tell everybody this.
If I took you to dinner with him for an hour.
Oh, yeah.
You can be as far left and have whatever perceptions of him you have.
It is impossible for you to get up from that dinner and walk away and say, I hate that guy.
It's impossible.
And to the brilliance of Kid Rock, we did it with Bill Maher.
You know and you're talking not just on the Bill Mar side, but on the president Trump side hate each other.
One of the greatest dinners that I have ever been to in my life i've heard about this.
It was hilarious.
And then to see those two sit next to each other and talk politics for an hour and things they agreed on they actually agreed on things and things they didn't agree on um, and then the president gave them an incredible tour of the White House and uh, I would.
I would do Trump every time And you let him pick the menu.
The dinners at the White House have been, you know, the best dinners I've ever had.
The food's really good.
Yeah, very good.
Thank you so much for doing this.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for watching this episode of the Katie Miller Podcast.
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