‘Aspinall IS My Heavyweight!’ Dana White On Fighting Eddie Hearn, UFC White House Boxers & More
Dana White is world famous for turning UFC into a global juggernaut; making some powerful friends - and some powerful enemies - along the way. He’s now bringing his unique brand of strategic shock therapy to the world of boxing, where it’s fair to say that not everybody is enjoying the challenge. Last month Conor Benn, a very familiar face to Uncensored viewers, left Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom to join Dana’s Zuffa Boxing - a decision which left Eddie furious. And today, it was announced that Dana’s heavyweight Tom Aspinall is going over to Matchroom… Dana joins Piers to chat about whether he would fight Eddie, who’s going to be in the UFC White House event, getting sued by Frank Warren and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Dana White Joins The Fight00:15:03
Is there a bigger pussy than Eddie Hearn?
He was quite upset.
Is there a bigger pussy than Eddie Hearn?
There's been a lot of pussy talk this week, Dana.
It's crazy.
You are the biggest animal in world sport.
Listen, if Eddie wants to box, we can box.
If you actually happened, who would win?
Would you be confident?
What is the state of play with Tom?
Tom and I obviously need to talk.
What do you think of what is happening at the moment with Iran?
Do you have a view about it?
Not anything that I would talk about publicly.
Donald Trump is a very good friend of mine.
I was just with him last week again, and he's hilarious and he's an animal.
There's going to be this big UFC event at the White House.
A lot of speculation about who may be on that bill.
Are you looking at the name John Jones as you stare at that whiteboard?
Interesting.
Can you give me the scoop?
Dana White is world famous for turning UFC into a global juggernaut, making some very powerful friends and some powerful enemies along the way.
He's now bringing his unique brand of strategic shock therapy to the world of boxing, where it's fair to say not everyone's enjoying the challenge.
Last month, Connor Ben, a very familiar face to Uncensored viewers, left Eddie Hearn's match room to join Dana's Zufa boxing, a decision which left Eddie Hearn furious.
Well, Dana White joins me now.
Dana, welcome back to Uncensore.
Good to see you, buddy.
There's been a lot of pussy talk this week, Dana.
You called Eddie Hearn a pussy.
He's responded to the pussy claim by saying he kind of takes it as a compliment because you're talking about him.
Explain why you think he's a massive pussy.
I'm talking about him.
This guy hasn't shut up since the day I got into this sport.
It's crazy.
Eddie and I had a relationship, and I literally didn't see that coming.
And to be honest with you, I wasn't going to mess with Eddie at all.
You know, I liked him.
And just, I mean, that's just, it's been absolutely crazy.
I'm talking about him.
This guy hasn't shut up since the day I got into the sport.
The reason I'm actually, you know, listen, and Eddie said, oh, this is great.
I look forward to competing with him.
And there's a lot of things he doesn't know about boxing.
He's going to learn the hard way.
And Eddie, I've been in this business for 30 years.
And, you know, the whole Connor Benn thing, apparently, they're supposed to be really close and Eddie's supposed to be hurt by this and all this stuff.
Eddie Hearn and his father are incredibly wealthy and will be for the rest of their lives.
Connor, who they care about, is going to make some good money for him and his family.
You should be happy for him if they're that friendly and that close, or he should have matched the deal, which he could have done.
He obviously has the money and he could have matched or beat it.
See, that's to the nub of this, isn't it?
Because you and His Excellency Turkey Al-Al-Sheikh from Seller, who I know well, you've come storming into boxing.
You've grabbed it by the horns.
And in the UK in particular, Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn, with their different companies, are used to kind of being quite dominant there.
Eddie, I think his position would be, I've known him a long time, is that he nurtured Connor Ben, but it wasn't that that hurt him.
It's that when Connor Ben was going through his big drug scandal problem, which ultimately he came through, of course.
But when he was going through it and everyone else was tossing him on the bonfire and throwing him to the wolves, Eddie stood by him and he felt that when it came to him defecting to you, he didn't really even give him the courtesy of a phone call.
As somebody who's had to manage your own roster of people, could you understand why if you stand by somebody who goes through a really tough time, it's that that's the betrayal, not just someone moving management?
Yeah, it happens.
I wouldn't confuse business with the personal relationship either.
When we signed Jai Opataya, who's fighting this weekend for us, Eddie came out and said, you know what?
He never sold anything anyway.
I couldn't sell anything with Jai.
Well, Jai's job is, your job is to sell.
So when you sign a guy, his job is to be a badass.
Your job is to figure out how to make him and you as much money as you possibly can.
Are there any rules in the fight game from your perspective?
I mean, is there any like gentleman's code between you all?
And is the kind of stuff we've seen between you and Eddie this week, is that all part of the theater, if you're honest, Dana?
Yeah, if there's a if there's a guy under contract, you don't mess with him.
When contracts are up and somebody has the right to negotiate, all's fair.
The reports are that you offered Connor Ben $15 million for one fight.
Can you confirm that?
I cannot.
Because it's not true or because you don't want to talk about it?
Yeah.
Eddie Hearn had him under contract and Eddie Hearn, when his contract was up, Eddie Hearn has the right to match and has the right to negotiate for his fighter.
He could have kept, he could have kept him if he wanted to.
In terms of all these guys, hey, so you got all these guys that are talking smack.
I didn't say anything.
I sat back and we're getting into the game.
I'm going to build it from the ground up.
I'm going to, you know, I'm not just going, I'm not going after like USIC and all these type of guys.
I'm going to go after the up-and-coming stars.
This is where I like building things from the ground up.
And that was what I said.
I don't know if everybody took that as, you know, that's all I would do or whatever it was.
You know, so Oscar De La Hoya, Oscar De La Hoya is suing his fighters to try to make them stay with him.
You know, you're running a bad business when you're suing your people to stay with you.
And listen, anybody who ever gets into business and says that they want to compete, I don't take anybody lightly and I don't overlook anybody.
And all of these guys apparently felt that way about me.
They underestimated me or I don't know.
And here we are.
Well, for viewers who've not been following Pussygate this week, I just want to play what you said about Eddie first and then what he said in his response.
So let's take a look.
Okay.
Well, I think you saw this week, I am really beating up babies.
Is there a bigger pussy than Eddie Hearn?
He was quite upset that Connor Ben left him.
Is there a bigger pussy than Eddie Hearn?
This guy's supposed to be your friend.
You're fucking crying.
He made more money.
He's going to make more money and he had the right to match it.
He could have matched it.
I think he said he tried and Connor Ben wouldn't return his calls.
What a crock of shit.
Yeah.
We're literally beating up babies.
Thanks, Dylan.
Yeah.
I don't look at Dana White.
There's nothing.
It's not like, you know, he comes out of the press.
That surprised me.
Right.
Eddie Hearn.
Have you ever known a big pussy?
I'm like, fucking hell.
I mean, firstly, this is so good for me.
Like you're sitting at your UFC press conference and you're talking about me.
Right.
So in terms of me building a profile and a brand in the U.S., this is golden.
The more they talk about me, the better.
But I don't go away from that and going, I can't believe he called me a pussy.
So you're helping his career, he's saying, in America, Dana.
Yeah, we'll see.
We'll see how his career is being held in America.
Yeah, I'll tell you what, you know, you and I will obviously talk again in the future.
When we talk a year from now, let's see how well his brand's looking in America.
I mean, are you guys, you know, Frank Warren, obviously, full disclosure, another longtime friend of mine, I've known him a long time, Frank.
He says he's considering legal action against you and your company, TKO, and against Seller, Turkey Alash's company.
What is your reaction to that potential legal action?
And on a sort of wider scale, is your mission, if you're honest, to wipe these guys out?
Do you want to completely dominate world boxing in a way that doesn't leave room for people like Frank Warren or Eddie Hearn to operate in the way that they used to?
Let me ask you a question.
And I like the Warrens.
You haven't heard me say anything about them.
Always been nice guys.
Anytime I've ever, you know, dealt with them, they haven't come out and really said anything.
Sue me.
Sue me for what?
I mean, I'm in the business just like they're in the business.
What have I done other than compete to be sued by the Warrens?
We haven't messed with any of their fighters that are under contract or tried to steal anybody or do anything like that.
And we won't to any of the promoters.
I'm in here to compete.
I mean, all the sanctioning organizations are going crazy.
Eddie Hearn absolutely lost his mind.
You know, the Warrens haven't said anything.
And, you know, but they're talking about legal action.
You know, I don't know what they have, you know, think they have with Turkey Alasha.
You know, that's their relationship.
But I don't know what I have done to the Warrens that they think I should be sued other than compete.
What do you feel, Dane?
Yeah, I mean, on a big picture scale, some boxing purists, and it may be that they're slightly dinosaur in this thinking, but they look at the kind of fights that are coming along, which are generating the really big money, whether it involves Jake Paul and Mike Tyson or Floyd Mayweather getting back in with Manny Pacquiao, whatever it may be.
And they say, look, these aren't real fights.
These are like entertainment bouts purely for entertainment.
And because they make such big money, there are going to be more and more of them.
And that the purity of actual boxing gets diminished along the way.
And the parallel they use is that you wouldn't do this in UFC, for example.
UFC has got a purity about it where when you put on a UFC night, you want the best of the best competing at the elite level.
You wouldn't have a bunch of older guys in the mix.
What do you say to that?
I agree with that.
I would be one of those guys that agrees with that.
But that type of stuff is always going to happen.
If you find two guys that are famous and want to fight each other, there's always going to be an interest in that.
But that's not what I do.
What I do is I put the absolute best versus the best against each other every weekend.
Literally every weekend, I do it.
So that's what I'm bringing back to boxing is that these guys, almost everybody's undefeated in the sport, right?
Because they're not fighting anybody.
The best will fight the best.
I mean, I've only done three shows and I don't know off the top of my head, but a lot of undefeated kids have already fought each other in Zufa boxing.
And I am one of those boxing purists.
So I would agree with that.
What do you think of the likes of Jake Paul?
kind of influencers who are trying the fight game.
I mean, obviously he's got better, but do you think he's an asset to the sport or not?
Well, listen, Jake Paul is doing his thing.
He's, you know, guys obviously made a lot of money and, you know, people have been interested and he plays the heel perfectly.
You know, even if you don't, if you don't, if you hate what he's doing and you hate all the stuff about him, you hate him so bad that you're tuning in to see him get knocked out.
So he's played the thing the right way.
And I'll tell you this.
He got hit.
If you look at what AJ did to Francis and Gagneu, right?
And Jake, it was a terrible fight.
And, you know, he kept trying to tackle him.
He did everything he could to avoid a fight.
But once he got hit with that shot and he went down, broke his jaw, AJ didn't knock him out.
He definitely didn't knock him out the way he knocked Francis out.
So if I give Jake Paul any credit, I'll give him that.
And that he's, you know, he's built himself a business and he's made a lot of money.
And will you watch Mayweather Pacquiao, the rematch?
I don't know.
I mean, it's one of those things that depends on, I'm not going to be like, oh my God, I have to be home on Saturday to see this.
But if I'm home, I'd probably watch it.
Yeah.
And that's the thing with those type of fights.
If you're not doing anything, you're not going to go out of your way to try to stay home to watch it.
But if you're home, you're definitely going to watch it.
Who do you want at Zoofa that you don't currently have?
Who's on your wish list?
Listen, my thing is right now in this building phase is I want all the best up and coming guys and people that we believe can be world champions someday.
No different than understand this, right?
When I built the UFC, I took everything that I loved about boxing and everything that I hated about boxing and building this business.
So and look how well it's worked.
So how well do you think it's going to work for boxing?
Yeah, I mean, as you know, I've said it to your face before, but I'm a massive admirer of the whole UFC business you built.
And I remember the early days, how you were mocked and reviled for it.
People didn't think it would ever last.
And here you are with this multi-billion dollar brand that is incredibly popular.
And when you watch it, you know you're watching Supreme Athletes at the peak of their game.
As a sports fan, of any sport, that's what I love to watch.
You know, I'll watch the recent Winter Olympics once every four years if I believe I'm watching the best skiers in the world, right?
I don't think I'd watch two has-beans get it on on a mountain side.
So I think like that as a sports fan.
I agree.
I do too.
Money Versus Family Values00:05:44
You know, and, you know, when you have the best versus the best, you know, people know it, people feel it.
And when you get the right fight in the right place at the right time, everybody wants to watch it.
Think about this.
So when I got into this, you were just saying about the business.
When I got into this, everybody was telling me this will never work.
You know, nobody's going to ever care about UFC.
You'll never be bigger than boxing.
You'll never get Saturday nights because boxing owns Saturday nights.
Well, here we are.
And now I'm getting into boxing.
You've become staggeringly rich, Dana.
I mean that as a compliment.
And you gave a fascinating, you gave a fascinating interview in the street, in the street recently to a random guy that just stopped you and asked you about kind of life lessons.
It was really interesting because you talked about that you had some of the happiest moments of your life when you were broke, when you had nothing.
And yet, whenever I've met you or interviewed you, and it's a number of times, and I see it as a great honor to talk to you because I think you're one of the significant figures in world sport.
I just get a feeling of a guy who, yeah, you're stinking rich, but you're actually a happy guy and you're quite a well-adjusted guy, I think.
I don't know you as well as you know yourself, but you know, it looks to me like money hasn't corrupted you like it has a lot of people.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, I mean, you know, money, money ruins everything.
When a lot of money gets involved, everybody thinks that the answer and the key to happiness in their life is going to be if they can make a lot of money.
You know what money does?
Money doesn't make you sweat the things that regular people sweat.
How am I going to pay the mortgage, the car payment?
You know, you know, it's what that stuff, but money brings a lot of other problems to your life.
And if you're not a happy person who loves your life when you're broke, you are definitely not going to be a happy person that loves your life when you have a lot of money.
I can guarantee you that.
And yes, you know, I told that kid, some of the greatest times of my life were when I was broke.
I had a blast when I was broke.
What's the best and worst thing about being highly successful and very wealthy?
You know, there's a lot of things that people don't see.
A lot of people coming at you all the time.
You really can't trust people.
You can't let your guard down with anybody.
You know, and everybody needs to borrow money, man.
Everybody needs to borrow money.
There's people that lie every day.
You know, Pierce, I'm sure, you know, you deal with it.
And here's the other thing.
Somebody says to you, hey, I want to borrow some money.
That money's never coming back.
Okay.
There's no such thing as borrowing money.
So you just got to say, here you go.
And, you know, and you try to make sure that the money doesn't destroy relationships is what I really try to focus on in my life.
I care more about people than I do money.
So I always just try to make sure the money doesn't destroy any of my relationships that I care about.
It was interesting.
You gave another interview where you were talking about how you run your business.
And you were saying that, you know, you don't care whether people get in at two minutes past nine, as long as they do the work, right?
So if they finish it at nine o'clock at night, that's fine.
But also you said that, you know, if they've got a, if they've got a family and they've got a kid who's, you know, got a school match or a play or whatever it may be, you want them to feel they can go to those things.
And I thought that was such a refreshing attitude for a boss of a major company to have because so many bosses, I think, have a sort of negative view of that kind of thing.
You've got to be in there.
You've got to be in there five days a week, nine to eight.
You know, there's no time.
If your family comes first, you're not for us.
You seem to have that work-life balance for you and your team the way it should be.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, it's very important to me.
So my team that works here, you know, we go every Saturday.
There's a lot of traveling involved.
And in the summertime, I throw big parties out back here.
I do like carnivals and stuff.
And I want them to bring their kids to the office and see where their parents work and, you know, make it a fun place for their families too.
On this board here, I got fights.
March 7th is this weekend.
And then we go all the way to June 20th that we lay out.
And once we start getting into this, you get into the year.
Just like boom.
Now my kids, my kids are uh, my two boys are 23 and 24, my daughter is 19 and they're all out of my house and it went by so fast.
Now everybody that works here is an animal.
I have a building full of animals here.
My, my team is incredible and they're all grownups.
They know what they need to do.
They know what needs to be done.
Uh and, and I don't care when they get their job done, it could be at three in the afternoon or it can be at three in the morning.
This, this building's, 24 hours and uh, if your kid has a game, a play, a parent teacher conference, anything like that, get the hell out of here and go, go do that stuff and be there for your kids and and and enjoy these moments with your family, because it's going to go by quick and i'm all about that.
You know there's no hey, it's, it's 905.
Where's Eric?
Why is he not at the office yet?
If I need Eric, i'll find Eric and i'll track him down and um, you know, but yeah I, I I don't want people to sacrifice their relationship with their kids and their families uh, for work.
Being A Good Father First00:15:27
Do you think you're a good father?
Then try to be.
It's important to me uh, it's important to me, so it's, it's, it's a very high priority on my list, so I try to be.
My dad's given me two, two pieces of advice that I can remember.
He's still with us, and one was always be polite to police officers, and the other one was always drink the best French wine.
You can afford both excellent pieces of advice, but what advice do you try and give?
What advice do you try and give your kids?
I, I always try to tell my kids, uh, you know I, I don't ever want my kids to feel like they have to compete with anything that i've ever done in my life.
I want my kids to choose their own path and, and the only thing I care about is that they're happy.
Uh, if my kids came and told me, dad, I want to pump gas for a living because I love getting up early in the morning, I love the smell, I love the, you know, love it.
Knock yourself out.
I'm not trying to have my kids be doctors or lawyers or businessmen, or I just want my kids to live happy, full lives.
And that's it one of the things you mentioned, that money can ruin relationships, which is obviously so true, but so can politics, and there's nobody that is more divisive, in that sense, I guess, than Donald Trump.
You and I have been friends of his for a couple of decades and we've, you know, we've seen the good, bad and ugly of him and you know he, he's a unique character, as my daughter put it, he's he's, he's almost too unique, but he, you know he, he's someone we've known very well for a long time.
If you say you're a friend of Donald Trump, as you've discovered and I discover there's a lot of people that instantly that that puts their shackles up.
They, they hate you, they want to judge you for it.
And i've seen families break, you know, break down over this.
Uh relationships friendships uh work, colleagues all falling out over Trump uh, politics generally, but but particularly Trump.
You must Get that all the time because you speak out in support of him.
How do you deal with that?
What's your view of it?
It's a fascinating thing because I have a lot of relationships, obviously, with people who are very conservative, but I have really good relationships with people who are very liberal, too.
You know, back when we grew up, you didn't talk about religion or politics.
You know, now I think these things have changed everything.
So it's just, you know, it's a different world we live in.
But I'm not as political as everybody thinks I am.
So when I'm around, I don't really talk a lot of politics.
And anytime that I've ever spoken at the Republican convention or for Trump or any at any of his rallies, you never hear me putting down the other side.
I never put down the other side or any of that type of stuff.
I can have my opinion.
And Donald Trump is a very good friend of mine.
And he's a great human being.
And I love the guy.
I mean, every time I was just with him last week again, and for two days after I left him, I was cracking up, laughing about stuff that he said while I was there.
He's hilarious.
And he's an animal.
He is literally the hardest working guy I know.
He loves this country and he cares about people and how he is being portrayed by the media is actually gross.
It's gross the way that they portray him because he's the furthest thing from it.
But is he an alpha male?
He is an alpha male and he is a tough guy, man.
What do you think of what is happening at the moment with Iran?
It's the big news story at the moment.
Do you have a view about it?
Not really.
I mean, I do in ways, but again, not anything that I would talk about publicly.
You know, that's what I'm talking about politically.
Whether it's, listen, the United States is doing it what the United States is going to do.
Regular citizens like us, you know, you can support it or not support it or feel however you want to feel about it, but it's going to happen.
That's that.
Just deal with it.
On June the 14th, which happens to be Donald Trump's 80th birthday, as part of America's celebrations of the 250th year of that shameful moment when you gained independence from us, which I have to say.
We don't celebrate in quite the same way, Dana.
Every 4th of July, I text Michael Bisbig some funny meme about leaving England.
It's awesome.
I love it.
You know, you could have had King Piers I if you played your cards, right?
But instead, you went your own lonely furrow.
But there's going to be this big UFC event at the White House in front of 5,000 people on the White House South Lawn.
A lot of, I mean, it's completely unprecedented, going to be an amazing spectacle.
A lot of speculation about who may be on that bill, particularly that John Jones, who I think last time I spoke to you, said was the greatest of all the UFC fighters, that he might come out of retirement to take on Alex Pereira.
Can you confirm that?
Can you give me the scoop?
So I'm literally, I'm in the war room right now.
All the fights, like I told you, March 7th, all the way to June 20th, are laid out.
We've kept this card so private and secret.
Lineage, my head of PR, is sitting right across from me, and behind her is this big whiteboard that we moved in here.
And the whole card is laid out right here on the whiteboard.
So you know who it is.
I'm looking at it right now.
I'm staring at all six fights.
We're scheduled to do six.
Are you looking at the name John Jones as you stare at that whiteboard?
We were going to do six fights.
I might actually do seven.
I might add one more.
But yeah, I'm excited.
I'll announce, I'll announce the word is your surprise edition, maybe Conor McGregor.
Interesting.
You know, it's funny.
Every day when I wake up, you know, somebody will send me leaked.
This car, this fight's happening.
Like all these guys on the internet are putting like every fight that is possible to make out there that it's going to happen at the White House.
I think if they keep throwing enough shit out there, something's going to stick.
And eventually they have to be right.
You know what I mean?
There's only everybody in each weight class, the top 15, they keep putting together every fight that's possible.
So eventually they're going to be right.
Yeah, are you having to.
Are you going to answer that?
It'll be announced this week.
Yeah.
And have you had to clear the names with the president?
Is he taking an active participation role in the future?
Listen, listen, the president's got more important shit to do right now than worry about the card.
He's a big UFC fan, and obviously he trusts me and knows that I'm going to bring the best available card and the best production anybody's ever seen.
The production on this fight is so incredible.
It is going to be a one-of-one special event.
And not just for the fighters and the fans, but for my staff that gets to work this event.
It's going to be incredible.
Any chance of an eighth bout in the ring between you and Eddie Hearn?
No.
No.
How old's Eddie Hearn?
How old's Eddie?
In his 40s or something?
He's still pretty young.
I mean, he's a big unit.
He's probably fancier.
Yeah, he's huge.
He did box his six fights.
He did box his fight.
He boxed his dad.
Yeah.
I mean, who do you think would win if you had a fight?
He boxed his dad, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, let's put it this way.
We were talking about this earlier.
First of all, we're both too old.
That would have to be like a Jake Paul Netflix card, okay?
Or we could both fight Jake Paul.
We're actually in his age bracket of guys he likes to fight.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Does that Eddie Hearn boxed his dad?
And who won?
Yeah, he actually got in the ring.
You know, when Eddie was in his teens, he got in the ring with his dad and they went about three or four rounds.
And I think Eddie won and Barry walked away.
But the age difference then was a little bit more than it is between you and Eddie now.
I mean, Eddie has a 10-year advantage over you.
He's got the youth, but you are Dana White.
You are the biggest animal in world sport.
You know, if it actually happened, who would win?
Listen, if Eddie wants to box, we can box.
We can box if Eddie wants to box.
I don't think Eddie wants to box.
Would you be?
Would you be confident?
Yeah, listen, I used to, you know, back in the day, I used to box with all the guys, you know, boxers and UFC guys.
I have boxed.
So if Eddie Hearn's up for it, you're on for it.
Absolutely.
I might promote that.
I want to talk to you just about somebody that I interviewed, Dana, a while ago, Tom Aspinall.
He obviously was your heavyweight champion.
He's recovering from double eye surgery.
He is my heavyweight champion.
He is your heavyweight champion.
Right.
What is the situation with Tom?
Because he had this eye surgery.
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you've not had any personal contact with him since then.
What is the current state of play with Tom?
Yeah, the company is the company, has talked to him.
I haven't talked to him, and Tom and I obviously need to talk.
You know, he came out recently, or his dad too, saying that they felt like I was, you know, I don't know how they said it, but that I had sort of shit on him and the way that I had spoke about his eye injury, which was absolutely positively not the case.
Tom Aspinall is a guy that I respect.
He's been great, you know, to work with, you know, the whole time he's been here in the UFC.
And, you know, never once did I question his injury or speak negatively about it.
I said something once that I said, I think he's okay and I think he's going to be good.
And they came out and said, no, that's not the case.
And they said, I haven't even talked today, and I don't know why he would say that.
But, you know, obviously, my medical team is talking to him.
And that was what I had thought.
And they thought that I had knocked him in some way, which I absolutely positively didn't and wouldn't.
I like him very much and respect him.
I've never had a problem with Tom Aspinall.
Do you think he'll fight again?
I do.
Is that from conversations his team have had with your team?
Well, you know, he's still dealing with whatever's going on with his eyes.
You know, and obviously over the last 30 years of being in this business, I've seen injuries that I questioned whether guys would come back from.
And they always have, including eye pokes.
But who knows?
But if you ask me, sitting right here right now, do I think Tom Aspinall will compete again?
I would say yes.
Just finally, Dana, what ambitions do you have left?
You've conquered UFC.
You're conquering boxing.
Is there a bigger ambition for you, either professionally or personally, that you can talk about?
Well, as we continue to build TKO, when you think about, you know, what we've done already has never been done in the history of combat sports.
Now getting into boxing, and I've always had this, I don't know what you'd call it, goal, I guess.
When I grew up here in the United States, we had channel three, channel five, channel eight, and channel 13.
And then cable came when I was in high school, 30 channels, and then the rest is history.
We all know.
I believe the channel three, channel five, channel eight, and 13 will exist again, but globally.
And who are the players going to be?
Paramount's making big moves right now.
Netflix is a monster.
You know, so when you think about my business, right?
The fight business as a whole.
I got slap, which is absolutely killing it.
UFC is killing it.
Boxing's on the right track.
And when you think about the ceiling for combat sports, there's 8 billion people in the world.
And now we're getting to a point in our lives where streaming is becoming a reality globally.
So when you put on the right fight in the right place with the right guys, what is your ceiling?
Your ceiling is 8 billion people.
And I just love the idea of that.
And I love the idea of just building this absolute machine that has never been done before.
Plus, all the people that have told me for the last 25 years that this can't be done, that can't be done.
Even when I started PowerSlap, everybody was like, this is stupid.
This is never going to work.
This is never going to, you know, and it's the same things they said to me about UFC.
And Pierce, I love that stuff.
I love it.
Love it.
It's what gets me out of bed.
I've got to be honest.
I've got to be honest.
If you'd come to me with the idea of PowerSlap, I'd have thought you'd lost your mind.
I'd have said there's absolutely no way that is ever going to catch on.
And yet, now it's one of the biggest money spinners in world sport, right?
Yeah, no, it's crazy.
It's been incredibly successful.
In just two years, we have over 30 million followers.
Our YouTube channel, which I'm a big believer in building your own channels out there, and our YouTube channel has over 4 million subscribers for PowerSlap and growing.
So I sort of have this feeling I get, gut, you could call it.
When I started watching PowerSlap on Instagram, what fascinated me is that I'm so jaded by the fight business.
I would stick around to the end.
I wanted to see who won and how.
And, you know, I'm like, if I feel like this, lots of other people.
And again, Pierce, the world is getting smaller every year.
So, you know, everybody thinks that, oh my God, PowerSlap is ridiculous.
This thing is silly.
Well, I don't need everybody to like it.
There's 8 billion people on Earth.
I only need this many people to like it.
And it's incredibly successful.
Yeah, it's so true.
And this Sunday, you've got your Zufa Boxing Championship belt being contested for the very first time.
Just give me a bit of meat on the bone about that.
Yeah, so Jayo Pattaya is, you know, the best cruiserweight in the world and one of the power for pound best fighters in the world.
Why PowerSlap Succeeds00:01:11
He's 29 and 0.
He's got 23 knockouts.
And he's taking on Brandon Glanton, who's 21 and 3 with 18 knockouts and coming off a big upset win in his last fight.
Both of these guys, like Glanton's got like an 86% knockout ratio, and Jay Opataya has got an 80% knockout ratio.
I'm super excited for this fight.
And it's for the first ever Zufa belt.
So one of these guys is going to walk out the Zufa cruiserweight champion this weekend.
Well, exciting.
Dana, it's always great to talk to you.
Thank you very much for taking time out of your ridiculous schedule to come back on Uncensored.
I appreciate it.
Always a pleasure, my friend.
Have a great day.
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