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Jan. 29, 2024 - Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy
52:48
The Ultimate Fighter | The TRUTH Podcast #44
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But your passion's still in this, and that's awesome.
I love taking things that people think can't be successful and making them successful.
That's what I love to do.
Two months later, we bought the UFC for $2 million.
I love killers that just, no matter how successful you've become, you love to win and you keep driving.
The media was murdering me.
Respect the hell out of me.
So we're meeting for the first time, man.
Yeah, nice to meet you, and congrats on everything.
It's good to meet you.
It's good to meet you.
I think we just walked in here, but catching you at a moment where I know you're taking care of the people who work for you.
That says a lot about you.
I don't know you before, but I know that you care about the people who work for you.
Sounds like somebody had a medical issue today.
You're here taking care of them.
Well, I'm here.
I respect the hell out of that.
Thank you.
I say it all the time.
We went through COVID together, me and my employees.
Probably the scariest time of our lifetime and a lot of uncertainties.
And, you know, I talk about it all the time.
At a time when companies were, you know, making the decision to lay off 30-40% of their staff, I did the exact opposite.
There's no way I was laying off.
Some of these people have been with me for, you know, 20 years.
Yeah.
And you don't find out who people really are until the shit hits the fan.
In that sense, it's useful.
100%.
People talk a lot about how much they care about their employees or how good a friendship is or how good a relationship is.
But you really don't know until you hit hard times.
I mean, the UFC has been this rocket ship of success now for the last however many years.
And then the first time that we face adversity, I'm going to lay off 30-40% of my staff.
There's no way in hell, man.
I look at this thing, this is a battleship.
And, you know, we either all go down together or not at all.
Yeah.
So what was...
I actually want to get to that, but just rewind the clock.
How long have you been here now?
I've been doing this for 23 years.
23 years.
And what brought you into this?
So I've been in the fight business since I was 19 years old.
And I was involved in boxing.
And...
A couple of buddies of mine, the Fertitta brothers.
We were out one night.
We saw this ultimate fighting kid.
His name was John Lewis.
And Frank Fertitta says to me, you know what?
I've always wanted to learn jujitsu.
I've always wanted to.
I said, well, I know the guy.
We went over and we talked to him.
And we set up a lesson for Monday.
Frank Lorenzo and I all started training on Monday morning.
Became addicted.
Through John Lewis, we started to meet a lot of the fighters.
And I started managing Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz.
Got into a contract battle with the old owner of the UFC. He flipped out on me one day and said, you know what?
There is no more money.
I don't know if I can even put on another event.
I literally called the Fertitta brothers and said, I think the UFC's in trouble.
I think we could buy it, and I think we should.
Oh, is that what happened?
Two months later, we bought the UFC for $2 million.
For $2 million?
So you kind of smell, in some ways, to use a fight analogy, smell blood a little bit.
Oh yeah, no, I knew for a fact that he was done.
He was on his last leg.
So who put up, the Fertitta Brothers put up the money?
The Fertittas put up the two million bucks.
They made me the president of the company and they gave me 10% to run it.
Yeah, good arrangement to get started.
It was incredible.
Yeah, and then that's end of history.
And here we are today.
Yeah, no other investors ever came in?
Abu Dhabi came in.
A little bit later.
Yeah.
The investment firm for Abu Dhabi came in and they bought 10% in like 2010, I'd say.
And then we sold in 2016 for 4.025 billion.
You sold in 2016. And who bought that?
The current owner?
Endeavor, yeah.
Ari Emanuel and Endeavor.
So you've been in the fight business for a long time anyway.
Yeah.
What have you learned?
What's different about UFC versus what your old days were in boxing in terms of just the character of the business and what drew you?
Well, the difference is, you know what's fascinating about boxing?
There's probably never been another business.
We're literally trillions of dollars have been made.
And at the end of the day, there's nothing there.
So what we wanted to do is come in and build, you know, almost like a league, a brand like the NFL or Major League Baseball and where there was actually value.
Inside the brand and bring all the fighters inside so that you could put on the best fights that the fans want to see.
That's interesting.
Usually when there's nothing there, you mean just after the fight, it's just gone.
Every time they put on a fight, it's a going out of business sale.
They try to get up as much money as they can get in the door and they don't care if the customer is satisfied, if they're happy.
You like the fight?
Too fucking bad.
We don't give a shit.
We're done anyway.
Exactly.
It's interesting.
Not to bring it into this, but it reminds me of the weirdness of a political campaign.
It's a business that's designed to end by the time you actually wind it up, which means you actually do all kinds of screwed up things along the way compared to a real business that's built to last.
Fact.
That's exactly what boxing is.
It actually just reminded me of it.
Versus what you said is you want to create something that lasts.
Right.
Something that lasts, has value.
We set standards that people believe.
Now when UFC events go on sale, they'll sell out before they even know what the main event is because there's a standard.
They know that they're going to get a quality product whether they buy the pay-per-view or they show up and buy a ticket.
So that's what I meant by it.
So you're talking about the sale was in 2016, but you bought it for $2 million when?
In 2001. 2001, you bought it for $2 million and you kept your 10% stake all the way through.
You sold in 2016, which means you cashed out to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
So what gives you your motivation now?
I love this.
It's just out of passion.
Well, since 2016, you know, I came back.
That's a long time to still be around after having sold it.
Well, what happened was when we were selling it at the time, you know, I thought that me and the Fertittas would ride off into the sunset and whatever was next we would do.
Yeah.
And they sit me down one day and they're like, listen, we want to talk to you.
This is obviously...
They being...
Franco Lorenzo, the brothers.
The Fertittas.
Okay, got it.
And they're like, this is an incredible deal.
It's an incredible deal for us.
Incredible deal for you and a lot of other people.
I mean, they made billions off of it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And you gotta stay.
Nobody's buying this thing unless you stay.
Literally not one buyer will buy it if you don't stay.
You know, in the beginning I was a little, you know, a little messed up with it when we did the sale because I didn't want to sell.
Yeah, you don't seem like the kind of guy who would have been satisfied.
I didn't want to sell.
I loved what I was doing.
Were you okay taking Abu Dhabi money or you didn't want to sell?
Yeah, yeah, we did that.
Because that's just minority investment.
Exactly.
They bought like 10%.
So when you asked me about that, I gave up 1% to Abu Dhabi and the Fertittas between the two of them gave up 9%.
So they bought, you know, 10%.
Oh, so they bought in not putting money into the company.
They took your, they bought shares from you.
Exactly.
Got it.
Okay.
Yep.
And, yeah, that was fine.
I was fine with that.
And I love the royal family in Abu Dhabi.
I love everything about Abu Dhabi.
They weren't telling you what to do.
Nothing but great experiences over there.
Yeah, good.
So, all good.
Did you do some fights over there, by the way, too?
What's that?
Did you guys host any fights over there?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, good.
When we went through COVID, they were who we partnered up with to go through COVID. My whole thing was when we were going through COVID is like, They're testing in Abu Dhabi.
If they're testing, why can't we test here?
So, you know, I was always very optimistic that we could pull it off and go through COVID. So they ended up being good friends that you made.
So they invested anyway years ago.
100%.
But then anyway, so you get to 2016, Endeavor or whoever else wants to buy you.
And the producer's like, listen, this is going to be good for everybody.
You've got to stay or nobody's going to buy it.
So...
I end up staying.
I didn't want to sell anyway.
How did these guys make their wealth?
The Fertittas to buy?
Casinos.
They own Station Casinos.
Okay.
Which is like the fourth largest gaming company in the country.
Got it.
So they already had their...
That's how they put up the two million to help you.
Yeah.
Although the amount of money they made out of this might be bigger than the casinos.
Huh?
The amount of money they made off of this might be at least as big as their casino.
100%.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
But the way that I looked at it is, at the time, I already had money.
I had money.
I already made more money than I ever thought I was going to make.
So, I was good.
But, you know, my friend Lorenzo, he and I are best friends.
He's like, listen...
I'm done.
Be happy for me.
This is what I want.
I want to move on.
So I got past it.
Ari comes in.
And he's been an incredible partner.
So I really can't complain.
It's been awesome.
And I love what I do.
And then me and the Fertittas got back into business together anyway.
We own like four other companies now together.
So while you're running this, you're able to, good.
And we get together every day and deal with all the shit you gotta deal with.
I love taking things that people think can't be successful and making them successful.
That's what I love to do.
Is the first part of that part of what gives you that chip on your shoulder that people think can't be successful?
Oh, there's no doubt about it.
When somebody tells me it can't be done, I have to do it.
Yeah.
I know that feeling.
I love it.
Yeah.
And so you're sticking with this, you think, rest of your life?
Yeah.
I'll never retire.
I'll die working.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
When I wrote my first...
I wouldn't have written my first book.
I wrote this book, Woke Inc.
years ago.
It was part of my time out of business.
You think you're going to sit down and you're going to do something.
I said, you know, I have an idea.
I sent it out around somebody to a book agent, another author I knew said, okay, here's an agent.
And they sent it back to me and they said, hey, listen, if you want to actually put your talents to use, you're a businessman, maybe you can use your financial resources to support somebody who has literary talent.
So I said, okay, all right.
That's actually going to make me what made me decide to actually sit up and write the book.
It's almost a favor that somebody does you when they said that it can't work.
It actually gives you the motivation that you otherwise wouldn't have had.
And so I feel you on that.
That's a big part of what got me going.
Well, you're either that guy or you're not.
Yeah, Michael Jordan was that way, too.
100%.
And that's a perfect example because I love killers.
I love killers that just, you know, no matter how successful you become, you just love to win and you keep driving.
I love to...
I do a lot of things A lot of things come across my desk because you have young entrepreneurs out there that are trying to build.
I love being a part of that too.
I don't want anything.
I'm not looking for any money or any of that.
I've connected so many people with other people or helped smaller companies to grow.
I just love everything about business.
I love people that have the balls To one day say, I'm going to work for myself.
You know, I say this all the time.
You see these people like, oh, you know, I'm thinking about working for myself because, you know, I want to have some time off and I want to take some vacation.
You don't want to work for yourself if that's what you're looking for.
You want to work for yourself, you have to get in there and grind and work hard.
And I respect everybody who gets out there and tries to do it.
I love it.
In any way that I can help, I usually try to.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, I think that people...
If it feels like work, you almost lost the battle.
I agree.
Right?
I think that any time I've felt in my life that you're actually laboring, like you're doing it for somebody else, you don't have the motivation to actually see it through.
Did you ever start to start a business before this one?
100%.
That's all I've ever done.
So when I was 19 years old, I worked at a hotel.
It was the Boston Arbor Hotel in Boston.
Oh, you worked there?
I've been there.
You stayed there for it?
Yeah, I know that.
Well, thirty-something years ago, I'd have been taking your bags and carrying them to your room for you.
Okay, fair enough.
I was standing in the lobby one day, and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing here?
This is not me, this is not what I want to do, and I want to be in the fight business.
And everybody told me at the time, which, fair enough, is probably the dumbest thing anybody ever heard, you know, that I wanted to be in the fight business.
But I walked out, I think half the battle in life...
That's kind of an interestingly weird choice to make.
You're a valet at a hotel, and you say, I want to be in the fight business.
Mm-hmm.
It's true.
I mean, what was going on in your...
I love...
Inside that...
I love the fight business.
You just loved it.
And I wanted to do it.
And everybody told me I was...
You said, like, somebody watched it?
Stupid it was.
Yeah, I was a big boxing fan.
But there was this guy in town.
His name was Peter Welsh.
And he was a fighting legend.
Street and boxing.
Okay.
And, you know, not a dude you went looking for, but I went looking for him.
And I approached him, and I said, I know you don't know me, and I know this is weird, but I want to learn everything that you can teach me about the fight game.
I'll work for free.
And at that time, this is in South Boston, when Whitey Bulger ran Southie and all that stuff.
It's a funny story, but his wife thought I was a fed.
She thought I was a fed or something.
She's like, this guy comes out of nowhere.
Did you have a shaved head back then?
No, no, I actually had hair then.
You know, this guy comes out of nowhere and wants to work for you for free?
This doesn't make any sense.
But, yeah, it's a crazy story.
But that's how I tell people all the time.
So you did do it then?
Yeah.
You worked for free.
He took me in.
Yeah.
And he was my...
My college.
He was my sensei.
He was my whatever you want to call it.
That's what he was to me and that's why I'm sitting here today is because I sought him out.
He said yes and I learned everything from him.
Is he alive still?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're still super close.
Awesome.
What's he doing?
He owns a gym in Boston.
Awesome.
He's in the fight game still and doing well.
So you trained under him, and then you said, okay, I'm going to start my own boxing business.
Well, then I ended up coming back to Vegas.
And as soon as I got back here, I was doing my thing.
And obviously Vegas, you know, the fight capital of the world, you know, everything just started to roll.
And I bumped into Lorenzo again.
I hadn't seen him since high school.
He was on the athletic commission for boxing.
And, you know, we saw each other at a wedding.
And then the next day, we ended up hooking up and we've been together ever since.
That was 27 years ago.
So the first entry into business was indeed this.
Yeah.
Well, I had my own business before that.
I ran a gym.
My own gyms.
So I opened a gym here.
Then by the time we did this, I had three gyms going and had people.
I had employees.
But you've never really experienced failure.
But not at this scale.
But you've never had failure, really.
Major failure, huh?
Yeah, no, I failed.
I failed in...
And things here and there.
Nothing ever dramatic that, you know, I lost everything or anything like that.
Listen, when you get out of bed, you have some good days and you got some bad days.
Yeah, exactly.
But I love stress.
If there isn't any, sometimes I put more on myself just because I love it so much.
Number one.
And number two, I love solving problems.
I look at everything, like COVID. COVID needed to be solved.
So you were starting to say that before.
So that was maybe the big challenge you've had in building this thing.
What was that like?
Where did that 30 to 40% layoff number come from that people were proposing to you?
Yeah, you know, basically, you know, we were looking down the barrel.
First of all, I knew that I was going to get paid bonus and all that stuff.
So if I was going to get that, I'd give that up to give to my employees while we tried to go through COVID. And I looked at it as, this is the way I look at my team.
No one guy does anything by himself, right?
You have somebody who is the vision and gets everything set up, but you need a team to really accomplish the things that I want to accomplish.
And over the last 23 years, I've built the biggest, baddest team in all of sports.
I'll put my team up against any other team and any other sport anywhere.
And, you know, the first day that they started shutting everything down, brought all my employees downstairs.
And I said, here's the truth.
I don't understand this.
I don't know what's going on.
But if you're scared, And you're nervous and you think you have somebody at home that could, you know, whatever, you're free to go.
Free to go home and do whatever.
Nobody went home.
Nobody went home.
So then we got to a point where we all had to go home.
Okay?
That happened even here.
Yeah.
Every week, I would send videos to my employees saying, Enjoy this time.
This is gonna be a very unique time in our life.
We're never gonna have this again, where you just get to stay home, get paid, and spend time with your family and hang out.
And I said, if you need anything, you need groceries, If any of your people get sick, you or family members, make me your first call.
We'll get you taken care of.
And this sounds weird, but at the time, it was a hot commodity.
If you need toilet paper, call me.
So I was telling these guys, whatever you need, made everybody feel cool.
Nobody's losing their jobs.
Nobody's getting laid off.
We're all going to be fine, and we're going to fight through this together.
And then I made the decision that I was going to go through COVID, no matter what it took.
Because at the end of the day...
What I have to do is I have to deliver a live product to television.
I don't need...
I don't have brick and mortar.
I can set this up on an island somewhere where it's just us.
I can do this anywhere.
And we can build a true bubble.
And all I have to do is give the feed to ESPN. That's all I need.
So when the time came when I told my troops...
We're going.
Everybody went.
Awesome.
Everybody went.
How soon into that?
Not one person said, oh, you know, this, that, or, you know.
Nobody.
My whole fucking team stormed the beach with me, and we went, and we ripped through COVID. It was the most successful time in the company's history.
Three fights that should have been doing 350,000 buys were doing a million.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Just because people were so hungry for it.
100%.
The media was murdering me.
Murdering me.
It means you're doing something right.
You know what I mean?
Through the whole thing.
What were they saying?
We did it in Abu Dhabi.
So we did it back in OCO. We ended up naming...
To your friends in Abu Dhabi.
Yeah, Yaz Island.
We named it Fight Island.
And we did the fights all in Yaz.
And we built...
The only true bubble that ever existed during COVID in sports.
We built a true bubble.
That's awesome.
Where the people who came in to work there, like they opened the restaurants and the hotels and everything for us.
Those people were there two months before we got there being COVID tested nonstop.
And then we tested everybody before we went.
We chartered Etihad Airlines and flew over there.
And everybody was safe.
Amazing.
Yeah.
And more than paid for itself.
It was an incredible, unique experience in all of our lifetimes and in all of our careers.
It was super cool.
That's phenomenal.
That was in 2020?
Yeah, it was 2020, 2021. So what did the media say?
Murdering me every day.
The fucking New York Times?
Relentless.
Just every week.
That I'm a piece of shit.
I'm gonna kill everybody.
I care about money more than I do human life.
All the shit that's put in place to scare everybody.
Let's scare everybody to death.
My philosophy was this.
If these people are right, if what they're saying is true, we're all dead anyway.
Right?
We're gonna sit in our houses.
But we can go to a restaurant Sit down.
Take our masks off.
Eat.
Put our masks back up and go.
And this is the deadliest disease.
And take off our masks to sneeze.
100%.
But then put it right back on.
But this is the deadliest disease of all.
It didn't make sense.
So many things didn't make sense to me.
You know?
Those are good friends in Abu Dhabi to do that for you.
The best.
Was it your contacts from the investment that opened it up?
Because I'm sure it wasn't the investment people that were doing it, but they opened it up via their other...
The royal family and Abu Dhabi are some of the smartest, most progressive...
Do you know MBZ? Love them.
You know the guy, personally?
Sheik Taknoon, too, yes.
He's a smart guy?
Brilliant.
If you look at the infrastructure that Abu Dhabi has built From 1970 to today.
It's almost unbelievable.
And when you sit down with the royal family over in Abu Dhabi, these people are so smart and so humble and caring and just, like, write down, like...
I'm trying to explain that.
To try to explain these people is really tough to do.
Well, try.
They're very unique.
When you're talking about a group of people who control trillions of dollars, right?
Or this royal family in the Middle East.
And when you meet them, gracious, smart, humble, caring, care about everybody.
They try to...
Look at all sides of the equation, or of the story, or whatever it is, and try to be fair to everybody.
Yeah, they're some of the best people that I've ever met in my life.
And I do tons of deals with them.
I was just there recently and had dinner with Shake Talk Noon, and every time I get to spend time with this guy, it's just...
It's a gift.
It's a gift.
I mean, it was interesting, because...
It doesn't feel to me like their whole investment, I mean, I don't know the first thing, but just my gut instinct is it wasn't just a financial investment for them, right?
No doubt about it.
And that's the thing with them.
Their thing is about relationships.
Yeah.
And the culture of that is probably something they were interested in, too.
Yeah.
Well, Shaq Taknoon is also their head of defense.
So he's a big jiu-jitsu guy as it is.
So Shaq Taknoon, how does he relate to MBZ? That's his brother.
It's his brother, okay.
And they are, you know, big into jiu-jitsu over there.
I wouldn't have guessed that.
Yeah.
Oh, Sheik Tak Noon's a, like, third-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Really?
Yeah.
And how do you think they got into that?
So he went to school here.
Okay.
He went to school, I think, at USD. Oh.
And it was like coming to America.
Nobody knew he was like...
Like the movie.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was like nobody knew he was like this prince.
You know what I mean?
And he was taking jiu-jitsu classes and stuff, and yeah.
Yeah.
And then they end up becoming, you know, one of the most powerful families in the world.
No doubt.
No doubt.
So, I think there's an interesting dimension here when we think about commerce.
You guys wouldn't have gotten together if it weren't for the shared interest in this business, right?
In jiu-jitsu, yeah.
Yeah, if it wasn't for jiu-jitsu, Frank Lorenzo and I would have never got into the UFC. If it wasn't for jiu-jitsu, we probably would have never met Sheik Tak Noon.
When you start taking...
All these little things.
I bet you could tell a thousand stories too.
All these little pieces of the puzzle that come together in your life that get you to where you are today is fascinating.
Yeah, you got to be open to it though.
100%.
If your heart is closed to the...
Sometimes we think it's the serendipity.
I've been increasingly convinced that that's happening every day and it's just the days that you're actually open to it is the days where you actually end up finding the connections that already exist.
100%.
And it's fascinating, too, how certain types of people gravitate towards certain types.
You and I meeting, you know what I mean?
Saw some of your stuff, listened to you, and like, this guy's bright, smart.
Got some heart.
I'm like you.
I'm in this for a purpose, right?
You got to be called by that purpose.
I agree.
I can tell you, you're one of these people who you have your unique God-given gifts.
God gives every one of us our unique gifts.
You have yours.
But when you're able to find what you can actually put that skill set to use for, that's true satisfaction.
What everybody thinks is because of my relationship with Trump that I'm some crazy political guy or I'm some hardcore Republican.
I'm really not.
I'm right down the middle.
A lot of things about me are conservative.
A lot of things about me are liberal.
But I love this country.
Yes.
I think Republican versus Democrat, those terms don't really mean much right now to me.
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
Right now they don't mean much to us.
I agree.
At the end of the day, the message that needs to be sent and what needs to be fixed is, we are all Americans.
And it doesn't matter if you're black, white, Asian, gay, straight, trans, any of this stuff.
If you are a citizen of this country, you're an American.
We're all Americans.
We all have a really good life.
If you want to nitpick all the little shit that's wrong, I mean, you'll drive yourself crazy if that's what you want to do.
I think at the end of the day, what most of us want that have common sense is we want to live a good life.
We want to have family and friends and we want to do things that we enjoy.
We just want to live a good life, man.
That's it.
All this fucking crazy shit, you know.
You got kids?
Yeah, I got three kids.
How old are they?
I got 22, 21, and 17. Two boys are older.
You want to live a good life and you want to pass on a better life to them.
100%, you know?
That's what this country's about.
Ronald Reagan has this great quote.
We're one generation away from losing our freedom.
That's right.
If you listen to everything that guy was saying in the 80s, it absolutely applies to right here, right now.
Yeah.
And it's funny because, you know, I'm in a global sport, right?
This is a massive sport all over the world.
And when I go to places like England, Mexico, Australia, the list goes on and on.
These people love their country.
Oh yeah.
They support their country.
They support their own.
Totally.
It's just like, this country is so broken and fragmented right now, it's actually gross.
We're taught to apologize for who we are.
It's gross.
Right?
And so being American today is considered, or being proud of being an American today is considered something to be actually ashamed of.
You know, you guys, I was doing the tour here beforehand.
You guys opened up a big facility like this in China, is that right?
We got one in China.
I'm cutting the ribbon next month in Mexico.
We got one here, and we're building the biggest one of all time in Abu Dhabi.
But have you spent time in China after?
Yeah.
So tell me about what your perception has been from going over there, of what you see in the culture, both in the fight culture, but also what it's taught you about the broader culture of national pride over there.
When you think about China or Japan and any of the places in Asia, that's where martial arts comes from.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's where that stuff was born.
So for us to go over there for the first time, It was a cool, unique experience.
I'm an insane Bruce Lee fan.
Oh, you are?
I mean, the quote that I live my life by is in my gym.
I'm going to take you in there when we're done with this.
I'm going to show you this quote that I've lived my life by my whole life.
It's a Bruce Lee quote.
And so, you know, the Asian culture I love anyway.
And when you go over to China, you know, and, you know, all the things that are said about China, it's communist, it's this, it's that.
And the people that are Chinese are very proud to be from China.
You know, Weili Zhang is our champion.
She's from China.
Our female champion is from China.
And she is a little badass.
And there's nothing she loves more than to represent her country.
You know what I mean?
I don't care where you go.
You don't see any other country ashamed of who they are and where they're from.
It's just something that started here in the last five or six years.
We teach the kids who are the best kids in the class now to kind of hide their excellence.
It's not cool to be the smart kid in high school.
It's not cool to be at the top of whatever you're doing.
And so in some ways, when America got to be at the top of the world, we treated ourselves that way, like it's something we have to...
I apologize for.
And now everybody else who looked up to America says, why am I actually looking up to America when I can just be proud of my own country?
You see that attitude in China?
You see it in India?
I'm hoping that's a pendulum that's going to swing in the other direction.
That's why I ran for president, actually, is I feel like that animal spirit right inside the heart of our country It actually has been tamed and domesticated into this new culture that celebrates victimhood and apology instead of excellence.
And that animal left and went to places like China, lifted them up.
They used to have that culture of victimhood under Mao and otherwise.
That's actually come back here to hold us down.
And so I think that that is a phase we're in.
That's the way I like to look at it.
I could not agree with you more.
I hope it's just a phase.
I think it's just a phase.
Well, more people like us need to stand up.
Yeah.
And talk about this, because there's a lot of people that feel that way.
But for some reason, this whole cancel culture and all the other bullshit that's flying around right now, where if you fucking say anything that anybody doesn't like, They're coming after you.
You know what I mean?
Shut up.
Sit down.
Do as you're told.
100%.
I feel like it's the beginnings of that changing a little bit.
Do you feel that?
Oh, yeah.
It's the beginnings.
I think we're a hair's trigger away from people saying hell with this.
Everybody's tired of this bullshit.
Especially young people.
Yeah.
Everybody's tired of it, man.
And, you know, people are getting braver and braver now.
People need to start standing up.
And everybody became real scared, real fucking fast for some reason.
But, you know, it felt like everybody was being attacked.
But a lot of this comes from the media.
The media started this whole thing.
And what started to happen right now is the two most untrusted people right now In this country are politicians and the media.
For good reason, because both have been lying for a long time.
And, yeah.
What do you tell your guys here, the guys training here, young guys?
I met a couple of them.
I went upstairs.
That's what I wanted to tell you.
I jumped off track there.
In line with what you're asking me.
So I have a place up in Maine.
So my grandparents and my cousins have a lot of family up in Maine.
Love it up there, right?
Now Maine is one of the states that just did this shit with Trump, right?
Where they wanted to take him off the ballot.
Insane.
Insane.
Okay, let's start there.
One Secretary of State just says, okay, this man's not gonna be in the ballot.
Unbelievable.
Disgusting, actually.
And I just read this thing.
I'm diving into it.
I don't want to speak too much on it because I don't know enough about it, but apparently there's a basketball team up there that is incredible.
High school or college team, I'm not sure.
They're really good.
And they're smoking teams.
The state is now going to impose something on them.
They're going to be penalized for blowing teams out of the water as bad as they are because they're too good.
That's insane.
And yet sounds perfectly in the moment.
Right?
That's exactly what's happening in this country.
Have you ever in your fucking...
I mean, it's just...
It's unbelievable.
So I'm going to reach out to the coach of the team out there and see what I could do.
If anything, I want to bring that whole team out to a fight in Las Vegas.
I want to...
I want to reward these guys for being such badasses when these pussies that control whatever league they're in or whatever are trying to do this to them.
It's disgusting and every one of you that are involved in the state of Maine that are imposing this thing on this team, you guys fucking make me sick.
You are what's wrong with this country right now.
But anyway, I'm diving into this.
I want to talk to the coach.
I want to reward these kids somehow.
Bring them to Vegas.
Maybe they can play one of the teams out here or something.
That'd be awesome.
You know what I mean?
Do some big, you know, them versus Gorman, which is a good team out here.
I don't know.
I want to do something for these kids.
You can actually make it like an event out of there.
Maybe we do a little tournament out here with some of the best teams and they're one of them.
If you want to actually compete and be the best.
You come out here and win.
Blow away some of these other good teams.
Or don't.
But at least try.
You know what I mean?
Exactly.
But yeah, I'm going to do something with this thing.
I just read about this the other day.
It's disgusting.
It's exactly what's happening every day across this country.
Academics, sports, you name it.
Capitalist achievement, right?
If you achieve something the honest way through the free market.
My view is, you know what?
You made hundreds of millions of dollars.
Good for you.
You built this thing.
You shouldn't have to apologize for that.
There's nothing I love more than to see somebody take an idea.
Because think about how hard it is to take an idea.
And then take it to here, right?
Totally.
I mean, there's nothing cooler than that in life.
Yeah, it is.
But the fact that instead of teaching young people to say, this is what you should aspire to, and instead teaching them that this is what you should force these people to apologize for, that's what's drained the lifeblood out of this country.
It's kind of what got me into politics, man.
And when you think about guys, entrepreneurs that build stuff like this, How many other people's lives it affects in a positive way?
Oh yeah.
I just saw an article yesterday that In-N-Out Burger is shutting down in California, like Oakland or something, because of crime.
I mean, talk about...
In-N-Out Burger is one of the greatest businesses ever built.
Have you gone?
You spend any time in In-N-Out Burger?
So, you go in there.
The food is always excellent, consistent.
The places are absolutely clean from top to bottom.
The bathroom's clean.
The kitchen's clean.
When you're standing in line, they have people outside.
The service is excellent.
Their attitude is always great.
There's no better run business than In-N-Out Burger.
And it was built in California.
It's all over the state.
They're starting to shut down.
I mean, to own a business in California right now, it's pretty tough.
And that's the guy who they're trotting out as their next puppet to run the United States.
Could you imagine?
Unbelievable.
Yeah, by the way, I don't think I still don't think it's going to be Joe Biden who they're going to actually let run as the nominee.
So I'm going to pick the guy who's actually created the People's Commonwealth of People's Republic of California.
But that's not.
You know, one of the things I've seen is I went to New York City after the campaign.
You know, I thought I was going to go to New Hampshire, ended up after Iowa.
I thought it was clear the right move would get behind Trump and move to the next phase.
So instead of going to New Hampshire, I visited some friends and family in New York City.
What I see is even a lot of my old friends who used to think in a very different way after COVID, after what you've seen in the wave of crime affecting places up and down from California to New York, I think their views have totally morphed, actually, in a different direction.
I expected, I wasn't sure what to expect, actually, because I used to live in Manhattan.
You go back there after saying the things I've been saying for a year.
I kid you not, we have people on the streets sticking their heads out of cars and driving through Central Park, cheering for me just because they're seeing me walk on the street, doormen into buildings, and they'll say, hey, listen up, I'm with you and I'm voting for Trump.
But don't tell anybody.
But I had about 10 people on the same day tell me the same thing.
I said, you might as well be telling it to each other because I've met 10 other people like you from Uber drivers to doormen at buildings.
Same thing with me.
That's the same thing, actually.
Same thing happens to me everywhere I go.
It's a beautiful thing in this country.
Because people are hungry.
They're afraid.
But everybody's afraid at the same time.
And if everybody just lets their guard down, we realize it's actually a majority of us that feel the same way.
That's why you just said to me, You know, you feel it.
You feel it changing and shifting.
I feel it too, because everywhere I go, I get the same thing that you're saying.
I couldn't agree with you more.
And, you know, that's how you and I ended up connecting.
I love hearing...
I love hearing...
I love hearing common sense.
Yeah.
Common sense is a beautiful thing.
There's some principles of...
We did a few of those debates.
There's probably some principles and some lessons to learn from being in the ring.
Yeah, no.
And fighting.
There's no doubt about it.
Yeah, no.
That's the other thing, too.
And also be willing to fight and take it down.
So here at the UFC, right?
I'm assuming I have lots of gay employees.
I'm assuming I have lots of...
Who cares?
I don't give a shit.
Who cares?
Exactly.
Good for you.
You live your life.
Don't bother somebody else.
We come here every day and we work on UFC. That's what we do.
Common mission.
Exactly.
And then now my fighters...
Do you have a mission statement for UFC? Just off the top of your head, what would you say is the mission of this place?
You know what the mission of this place is?
We aspire to be the best, not just combat sport in the world, the best sport in the world where we're always trying to take it to the next level, whether it's technology and production, whether it's social media, the live event, whatever it could be, we're always aspiring to be better.
So it turns out your skin color doesn't limit your ability to do that or your race or your gender or sexuality.
We hire by talent.
Are you talented?
I don't care what color you are, what gender you are, what your sexual preference is, any of that stuff.
It doesn't matter to me how talented and how good are you.
And we don't even talk about that stuff here.
We all come here for the same reason.
We're all here to work.
And to be the best at what we can be.
And I truly believe, this isn't just talking shit.
I have the best team in the world.
I have the best team in the world.
And we're all aligned, no matter what our political views are.
Nothing ever goes out here like, hey, the elections are coming up.
Get out there and vote.
I'm voting for Trump and none of that shit.
You know what I mean?
You're all grown men and women.
You know the election's coming up.
If you want to vote, vote.
If you don't, don't.
We had a guy early on when the COVID thing started, Tyron Woodley.
He came out and Black Lives Matter everything.
I think he had Black Lives Matter socks on.
He covered head to toe in Black Lives Matter.
At the press conference leading up to his fight, they would ask him a question.
He'd say, Black Lives Matter.
They'd ask him about Black Lives Matter.
We didn't say shit to him.
No problem.
Knock yourself out.
Then we got Colby Covington, who's the complete opposite of the spectrum, right?
We're both of them good fighters?
Right.
Both of them are good fighters?
Yeah.
But whether they're good, they're not good.
This is America.
Yeah.
Everybody can have their own opinion.
That's right.
I'm not telling anybody what to do, what to say, what to think, how to feel.
We're human beings in America.
Do your thing.
Knock yourself out.
I got the platform, you know, and people get pissed off.
People get offended.
People get this and that.
We just had it happen with Sean Strickland.
I don't know if you saw this up in Canada.
No.
We're up in Canada.
Sean Strickland said a lot of things.
I don't agree with 95% of what this guy says.
But it's his right to say it.
And if you don't like it, tune in on Saturday night.
He's going to be getting punched in the face.
If you don't like him, you get to see him get punched in the face.
So there you go.
Root for the other guy.
Don't get too upset and don't take it too serious.
Yeah, I love that.
I love that.
Now, how do you think about, actually, you say you talk about merit, best person for the job.
Do you pay people more based on how well they're doing in the job?
Do you have systems to sort of say, who do you reward for actually doing a good job?
Yeah, there's base salaries, right?
You got your base salary or whatever your deal is.
And then at the end of the year, there's bonuses.
We bonus people for their work.
I don't know if I have one employee that isn't like...
Literally a fucking rock star, man.
I mean, everybody.
It's good.
What about the fighters?
Did you meet my head of PR? Is she in here?
No?
Let's see her before we go.
What's her name?
Lene.
Yeah, we met her.
When you came, she was in my house.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Checks all the boxes, right?
Good.
Yeah.
She checks all the boxes.
Super on top of it.
No, but I mean, checks all the boxes for what's going on right now.
Oh, you mean, yeah, happens to.
Yeah.
Happens to.
The best.
Literally the best PR woman.
It's funny you even said that.
Like, I didn't register.
I mean, she seems like somebody who's with it and actually gave us a good tour of the place.
But yeah, I guess now that you mention it, yeah, it does check some boxes.
Who cares?
The best out of PR in any sport or any company.
I literally have her attached to the hip to me.
I don't make a move without her being there because I respect her so much I want her input on everything that's going on.
You seem like one of these people who's kind of instinctual.
Even when I met her coming in.
But there's a certain sixth sense you can have for the kind of person who just is sort of with it.
You know what I mean?
Cares about their job.
When you're interviewing people, are you pretty intuitive about it?
100%.
I'm the same way.
If you work here, you'll go through the whole...
Process, and it ends with me.
I'm the last person.
So they'll take two or three candidates that they think they like and that they think I'll like, and then they come sit with me, and then I make the final decision.
You still interviewing most of the people who come in here to work?
Oh, yeah.
That's good.
Anybody that's going to touch my daily...
That's good.
You've got to have that good instinct.
I'm at a point now where I do all the fun shit that I like to do, right?
Yeah, I mean...
So anything that touches me on a daily basis, the interview ends with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll tell you one thing.
How many people do you fire a year, would you say?
Not many.
Not many?
Not many.
At this point, you've got that machine running the way you will.
Now, the fighters are not employees, right?
They're kind of partners.
Independent contractors.
Yeah, contractors.
Independent contractors.
How do you decide?
You still decide how much they're paid, though, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, and how do you think about that?
So, the way that it works is, you know, there's a...
I guess you'd call it a standard level of pay.
And depending on who you are and how you make it, how you climb up the ladder.
So what happens is when you become a world champion, you become a partner.
So when you got the belt, you share in the pay-per-view revenue.
Okay, got it.
So you can actually become effectively a revenue partner in the business after you work your way into that.
Once you win the title, you become a partner.
I don't know if there's another professional sport that I think actually does that.
I can't, football doesn't, basketball doesn't, baseball doesn't.
Well, boxing does.
Boxing, okay, okay.
Okay, all right.
Boxing does.
But those are one-time matches, but it's different here where it actually has permanent enterprise value.
And whoever is the champion in boxing, you get the lion's share of the revenue.
Here, it's dispersed across everybody.
We got a guy right now Who's 49 years old.
No, I'm sorry.
40 years old.
And he's on this hot streak, man.
And people are...
His name is Jim Miller.
Okay.
And he's been around forever.
He's been around since, like, we bought the company.
And he's still fighting.
And he's on this hot streak right now.
He's going to fight on UFC 300. And this is a guy who's been, you know, I guess you could call him a journeyman in boxing, right?
Okay.
If you asked most people, they wouldn't know who Jim Miller is.
And the guy's made millions of dollars.
Hmm.
Good for him doing this.
Yeah, 100%.
And he participates as a partner?
No.
He's not even at that level.
He's never made it to that level.
And he's already, and still will take millions from doing it.
So the money is dispersed.
Yeah.
Guys that would be considered journeymen in boxing never make that kind of money, ever.
Yeah.
What do you think is different about this?
It's more that it's not a one-time deal, it's the fact that it keeps going, right?
No, it's because what we do is we focus on building great fights with great fighters.
Yeah.
And if you can stay here for a certain amount of time, you make really good money, you know?
You can support your family, you can pay your house off, you can, you know, you're not going to be, you know, you're not going to have 30, 40 million dollars, but...
You'll have six, seven, eight million.
For people who, many of whom may not have had that.
Right.
And most people won't even, wouldn't even know who he was.
Yeah.
That's a beautiful thing.
Have you built relationships with a lot of fighters over the years?
Yeah, absolutely.
On both ways.
I've got guys and girls that I absolutely love and some that I can't stand.
That's kind of how it works, right?
Listen, we don't have to love each other to do business together.
That's right.
That's right.
Did you ever think of taking the company public instead of selling it?
We are public right now.
The parent is.
Or UFC itself is.
Yeah, yeah.
TKO. So, we are...
Combined with WWE under the ticker symbol TKO. I see.
I see.
So the people who bought you, they own like a majority of a publicly traded company.
Exactly.
How has that experience been?
It's been good.
You know what happens?
You know who Ari Emanuel is?
Ari, man.
You referenced him before.
Ari was the biggest agent in Hollywood.
Still is, but he's...
Was he one of these, the original, what was it, the agency?
UTA? Yeah, was he one of them?
Or whatever it was.
Okay, I've heard his name.
He's the biggest.
Okay, got it.
Ari's the biggest agent in Hollywood.
And basically, he started putting this whole thing together.
He came to us, wanted to buy the UFC. Lots of people were kicking the tires to buy the UFC. There were a lot of groups in there.
And the Fertittas, I told you earlier, told me, you've got to stay.
And I was like, guys, don't tell me I've got to stay and then stick me with some group.
It's going to be a nightmare to work with.
So there were two guys that I wanted to work with.
Ari was one of them.
Ari was the one that ended up getting the deal.
And it was the greatest thing to ever happen because I have an incredible relationship with him.
We work unbelievably well together.
And, you know, that was like...
It was back in 16, so in a couple years, it was 10 years, and it's been an incredible 10 years.
I've had an absolute blast.
He's great to work with, but the question you were asking me is, how is it being a public company?
Ari deals with all the bullshit.
Oh, good.
And I do what I love.
That's a good business partnership.
100%.
Because a lot of the stuff that you're talking about, even you're saying you're going to hire the best person for the job, you're going to do whatever's right.
COVID, you're going to do the right thing for the business rather than what the media tells you.
It's actually a lot easier to do that as a private company than it is as a public company, because you got the Blackrocks.
I don't know for sure, but Blackrocks probably owns a good number of shares of your company, too.
Nobody fucks with me over here.
I do my thing.
You know, they let me run this business, and, you know, I... That's kind of the understanding you had ever since.
That's it.
And I have this incredible relationship with my people, so it all works.
Nothing's gonna stop you, though.
Nothing's gonna stop you.
What would be...
We'll maybe close on this is, Say you're talking to a younger version of yourself, that 19-year-old at, you know, valet at the hotel in Boston.
Okay.
Or say it's one of the 25-year-olds who's fighting here today but may have the aspiration to become what you've become today.
What advice would you give them of something you would have done differently to get here?
There's nothing I would have done differently because it obviously worked out pretty good.
Yep.
What my advice I would give is don't listen to anyone.
Everybody tells you...
That's the best piece of advice.
Don't listen to me, don't listen to anybody.
Don't listen to anyone.
Everybody's full of shit.
Nobody knows you or what you're capable of doing.
And here's the reality.
The hardest thing in life is figuring out who you are and what you want to do for the rest of your life.
It's a big decision.
I'm very blessed and lucky.
I always knew who I was and exactly what I wanted to do.
And once you figure that out, you wake up every day and you work toward it.
That's what you do.
It's impossible for you to fail if you know who you are, what you want to do, and you wake up every day and work toward it.
See, that's beautiful.
I think the hardest part for so many of those young people, maybe for those young fighters or for that younger version of yourself, is actually that first question of even answering who you are.
100%.
Once you figure that out, then your home stretch, right?
It's all smooth sailing from there.
Think about this.
That's the hard part, though.
If you go to any college anywhere in the world, right, and you meet 10 college students, and you say, hey, what are you taking?
I'm taking political science right now, but I'm thinking of switching to marketing.
You were told that if you didn't go to college, you would never amount to anything, okay?
Then you get to college, and you're taking these classes because you were told you had to go here anyway, but you don't really know what you want to do and don't know who you are, so at the end of the day, you end up with a degree that you can't use because you don't know what the fuck you want to do.
Right?
And the worst part is, in the last 10 years, the people who are coming out are not just coming out with the useless degree.
They're coming out with $120,000 of debt on their shoulders that they're not able to pay off.
Yep.
Because they're not able to.
Is a college degree a requirement to work here?
No.
Yeah, probably for the better.
I want gritty, talented people, exactly, that are willing to work.
And I'm telling you, I'm so lucky to have the team that I have.
The hardest thing is, hopefully you're helping people do that here, is figure out who you are.
You said figure out who you are and then don't listen to anybody.
But that's what I think so many people, including young people, are struggling with today is, how do I go about figuring out who I am when I'm conditioned?
To believe something that I'm taught about myself.
That's the key.
It's the key to life.
You truly want to be happy?
You know what I mean?
I posted this thing yesterday.
Create a life that you can't wake up to every day.
You know?
And that is, in a nutshell, me.
I can't wait to get out of it.
Say it again?
Create a life that you...
Can't wait to wake up to it.
Can't wait to wake up to it.
I love that.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
That's good.
You seem like the kind of guy who fits that.
I think we have more in common than I knew about.
Oh, I could tell.
I saw you and heard you and everything else.
Love what you're doing.
Congrats with your success.
Thank you.
On my side, we'll figure out what's coming up next.
It's going to be helping this country in whatever way I can.
Whether you're an entrepreneur in politics, not just about whatever it is, fighting business, being a teacher, a volunteer, whatever it is, figuring out who you are is the hardest part.
But once you got that, nobody's going to stop you from achieving the maximum of your potential.
That's exactly right.
And if you do become vice president, president someday, it's about unifying this country, making people proud again to be American, and helping American citizens to do better.
It's just...
That's the way I look at it.
And you know the piece of advice you gave at the level of the individual?
Figure out who you are.
It's the same advice to our nation.
So true.
Let's figure out who we are as Americans.
It means that we're exceptional.
It means that we believe we can achieve anything we want with our own hard work and commitment and dedication.
Right now, that's what we're going through as a country.
Every other country you say, from China to India to other countries you name Australia that are proud of who they are.
Right now, it's almost like we have forgotten who we are.
Figure that out.
It's almost the advice to a young person that you give is the same advice I would give to the country.
Figure out who you are and then don't listen to what anybody else from the media to another country tells you to the UN that tells you what you're supposed to do.
Figure out who you are.
Don't listen to anybody and follow your actual purpose.
And that's what it's going to be for our country as well.
100%.
You know who we are?
We're a melting pot of lots of different peoples from all over the world, different nationalities, different religions and races and everything else.
And it's like when we were going through COVID, I was like, I'm an American.
I don't fucking hide my house from anything.
We don't hide.
We're first.
We get out there.
We overcome.
We adapt.
We figure out solutions to problems, and we kick fucking ass.
That's what we've done since.
Since the day this country was formed.
Since 1776. Exactly.
That's what we've been doing, and we're not going to stop now.
We're the explorers, we're the pioneers, the unafraid, the people who would not be stopped by some king sitting across an ocean halfway around the world.
And so let's not be that country today either.
Let's be the country that's unafraid.
Boom!
And to people like you, that's going to take us there, man.
Keep doing what you're doing.
Likewise.
Don't let anybody stop.
You don't apologize for who you are, what you're doing.
This place is awesome.
I'm pumped up from just the tour that we took before we came in here.
I want to come to a fight.
Anytime.
Love to have you.
Awesome.
We'll make that happen.
And maybe if you do that thing with the basketball team in Maine.
Yeah.
Tell them I got their back, too.
Done.
Be excellent.
And if you do that, maybe I'll come out here for it.
I'd love it.
Have fun with that.
Awesome.
It's good seeing you, brother.
Thanks for your time, buddy.
Thank you for taking time.
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